Everyone had come to a halt, and, while the bark torch burned dimly his three companions gazed blankly at Tom.
"What's that you said?" asked Jack, as if he had not comprehended.
"We're lost!" repeated Tom.
"Come again!" invited Bert. "You're jollying us!"
"Indeed I'm not!" exclaimed Tom indignantly. "You can see for yourself that we've passed this place before. Here are some of the ashes I knocked off the bark torch," and he showed his chums the place where he had hit the burning bark against a stone.
"That's right," Bert and the others were forced to admit.
"Well, what are we going to do about it?" asked Jack. "We're lost—that's evident and we don't need a pair of opera glasses to see it. But how are we going to get back to school? Or even on the right road? I wish we'd stuck to the way, even if it did go up hill. This taking of short cuts never did appeal to me, anyhow."
"But we didn't take a short cut," insisted Tom. "We took a long cut, and that's the trouble."
"I wonder if that farm fellow directed us wrong on purpose?" asked
George.
"He might have," said Jack. "And yet what would have been his object?" If he could have seen that same farm-hand gloating over a crumpled dollar bill about that time, Jack might have found an answer to his inquiry.