“Well, you awful boy!” cried Agnes, half angrily. “You let us think we were stuck here.”
“Cricky!” ejaculated Neale O’Neil. “Didn’t you all just jump on me for being careless and thoughtless? And none of you thought of the emergency tank. A fellow’s got to protect himself when he’s alone with a parcel of females,” and he chuckled.
“You ain’t alone, Neale. I’m with you,” declared Sammy Pinkney, suddenly.
The girls shouted with laughter; but Neale said, preserving his gravity:
“Thanks, old chap. I guess we menfolk will have to pull together in self-defence.”
They came to the next village in the course of time, and Neale bought gasoline. Before one o’clock they reached a delightfully wooded place for camping, and proceeded to have lunch as they had made it the previous day. They all declared these rustic meals to be the best of all.
Just beyond the little grove was a pasture, and, looking between the bars of the old stake and rider fence, Tess and Dot saw that the open space was studded with flowers of several kinds.
“Let’s pick some for Ruthie,” Tess suggested.
“Let’s. And for Mrs. Heard,” agreed Dot.
She ran back for the Alice-doll—for of course that precious child had to pick flowers, too—and to tell the older girls what they purposed doing.