When their frugal repast was finished, they instinctively changed their festal garments for the sober attire of every day.  Romeo brought in two lanterns and Juliet pasted red tissue paper around them, so that they might serve as warning signals of the wreck.  At sunset, they set forth, each with a blanket and a lantern to do sentry duty by the capsized car.

“Oughtn’t we to have a dog or two?” queried Romeo, as they trudged down the road.  “Watchmen always have dogs.”

“We oughtn’t to have anything that would make it any easier for us to watch, and besides, the dogs weren’t to blame.  They don’t need to sit up with us—­let ’em have their sleep.”

“All right,” Romeo grunted.  “Shall we divide the night into watches and one of us sit on the car while the other walks?”

“No, we’ll watch together, and we won’t sit on the car—­we’ll sit on the cold, damp ground.  If we take cold and die it will only serve us right.”

“We can’t take cold in June,” objected Romeo, “with two blankets.”

“Unless it rains.”

“It won’t rain tonight,” he said, gloomily; “look at the stars!”

The sky was clear, and pale stars shone faintly in the afterglow.  There was not even a light breeze—­the world was as still and calm as though pain and death were unknown.

When they reached the scene of the accident, Romeo set the two red lanterns at the point where the back of the car touched the road.  They spread one blanket on the grass at the other side of the road and sat down to begin their long vigil.  Romeo planned to go home to breakfast at sunrise and bring Juliet some of the mush and milk left from supper.  Then, while she continued to watch the machine, he would go into town and make arrangements for its removal.

“Is there room in our barn for both cars?” she asked.

“No.  Ours will have to come out.”

Juliet shuddered.  “I never want to see it again.”

“Neither do I.”

“Can we sell it?”

“We ought not to sell it unless we gave him the money.  We shouldn’t have it ourselves.”

“Then,” suggested Juliet, “why don’t we give it away and give him just as much as it cost, including our suits and the dogs’ collars and everything?”

“We have no right to give away a man-killer.  ‘The Yellow Peril’ is cursed.”

“Let’s sacrifice it,” she cried.  “Let’s make a funeral pyre in the yard and burn it, and our suits and the dogs’ collars and everything.  Let’s burn everything we’ve got that we care for!”

“All right,” agreed Romeo, uplifted by the zeal of the true martyr.  “And,” he added, regretfully, “I’ll shoot all the dogs and bury ’em in one long trench.  I don’t want to see anything again that was in it.”

“I don’t either,” returned Juliet.  She wondered whether she should permit the wholesale execution of the herd, since it was a thing she had secretly desired for a long time.  “You mustn’t shoot Minerva and the puppies,” she continued, as her strict sense of justice asserted itself, “because she wasn’t in it.  She was at home taking care of her children and they’d die if she should be shot now.”