“Nonsense!” she said.  “You’re an ungrateful bunch!  Here you have shelter from the storm, and you all begin to cry!  Well, no,” she added, smiling, “you boys are not exactly crying,—­but if you were girls, you would be!  Now, behave yourselves, and brace up to this occasion!  First, there’s a fireplace, and here’s a full woodbox.  Build a roaring fire, and let’s dry off a little.  Meantime, I wish you two men would go over the house, and find out who’s in it.  Daisy and I will stay here.”

“I won’t stay here alone with Patty,” sobbed Daisy, who was shaking with nervous fear.

“There, there, Daisy,” said Bill, “don’t cry.  I’ll fix it.  Miss Fairfield, you’re a brick!  Your ideas, as I shall amend them, are fine!  Pennington, you stay here with the girls, and build the biggest fire you can make.  I’ll investigate this domicile, and see if the family are really the Seven Sleepers, or if they’re surely afraid to come downstairs, for fear we’re burglars.”

Patty flashed a glance of admiration at the big fellow, but she only said: 

“Go along, Little Billee; but hurry back and dry yourself before you catch pneumonia.”

Bill went off whistling, and Jack and Patty built a rousing fire.  The woodbox was ample and well filled, and the fireplace, a wide one, and the crackling flames felt most grateful to the wet refugees.  Jack wanted to go after Farnsworth, but Daisy wouldn’t hear of it, so he stayed with the girls.  Soon Big Bill returned, smiling all over his good-natured face.

“Not a soul in the whole house!” he reported.  “I’ve been all over it, from attic to cellar.  Everything in good order; beds made up, and so forth.  But no food in the larder, so I assume the family has gone away for a time.”

“Well, of all funny situations!” exclaimed Patty.  Cheered by the warmth, her face was smiling and dimpling, and her drying hair was curling in soft tendrils all over her head.

“Come to the fire, Little Billee, and see if you can’t begin to commence to dry out a little bit.”

“I’ve just washed my hair, and I can’t do a thing with it!” said Big Bill, comically, as he ran his fingers through his thick mane of brown, wavy hair.  “But, I say, this fire feels good!  Wow! but I’m damp!  I say, Pennington, I’ve been thinking.”

“Hard?”

“Yes, hard.  Now you must all listen to me.  I expect opposition, but it doesn’t matter.  What I’m going to say now, goes!  See?”

Bill looked almost ferocious in his earnestness, and Patty looked at him with admiration.  He was so big and powerful, physically, and now his determined face and strongly set jaw betokened an equal mental power.  “I’m at the head of this expedition, and in the present emergency, my word is law!” He banged his clenched fist on the mantel, as he stood before the fire, and seemed fairly to challenge a reply.

“Well, go on,” said Patty, laughing.  “What’s it all about?”