In fact, Tess felt quite brave now that she was again on the mainland. She was sure that they could easily find Willowbend Camp.
They came out into the hot, dusty road. It stretched before them as bare as a tennis-court and as hot as a sea-beach. The trees that bordered it were white with dust far up their trunks and the leaves of their lower branches, too, were dust-covered.
This was the result of rapidly passing automobiles on the road; but none of these vehicles was in sight now. The road seemed deserted.
Save for just one thing. Dot saw it before Tess.
“Oh, look!” the smaller girl cried. “Isn’t that a peanut man, Tess? Don’t you wish you had a nickel?”
“He isn’t a peanut man,” said Tess, after a sharp look at the man pushing the little wagon along the road before them.
“Isn’t he?” returned Dot, disappointedly.
“It’s a hot-frankfurter man,” declared Tess.
“Oh, Tess! a nickel would buy two frankfurter sandwiches,” gasped Dot. “And I’m so hungry.”
So was Tess. The thought of the steaming sausages lying on the split Vienna roll, with a spoonful of mustard on each half-sausage, was enough to make any hungry person’s mouth water. At least, any hungry person of the age of Tess and Dot Kenway.