Permission was readily granted, for the farmer was grateful for his own warning, and in less than ten minutes' time the two boys were galloping back along the frosty road to the old skinflint's place.
"Aren't you going to tell him about the frost?" asked George, as Ross turned his pony off on the windward side of the orchard.
"I have told him," answered Ross, and he related the story of the meeting, gathering together dry twigs and branches as he talked.
George waxed indignant.
"I'd let him go to grass!" he said.
"That's what I thought at first," Ross replied, "but if you saw a chap drowning, you'd jump in and save him without waiting to find out whether he was delirious and didn't want to be saved."
"Of course," George answered, "any fellow would jump in."
"That's what we're doing, we're jumping in."
Minutes were precious and the two boys worked with all their might, gathering piles of twigs and dry sticks. There was a heap of straw and stable manure a field or two away, and Ross rolled several wheelbarrow loads of it across the fields. After two hours' work, the boys had a row of little piles of fuel, covering one quarter of the length of the orchard.