Dick led the way out of camp, at a brisk four-mile-an-hour stride. The long hike was started, at last. After that there was no grumbling, even during the hourly halt of ten minutes.
The noon halt found them with eleven and a half miles covered out of the twenty. Five o'clock brought Dick & Co. to the outskirts of Fenton, a town of some twenty-five hundred inhabitants.
"Whoa!" called Tom, reining up half a mile from the town. "There are woods here, Dick. If we go any closer to Fenton, we'll either have to keep on traveling to the other side of the town, or ask the authorities for permission to camp on the common. Don't you believe we had better stop here?"
"These are the woods that Dave and I had just picked out," Prescott replied. "We were going to keep on traveling until we found out who owns the woods. This isn't quite in the wilderness, Tom, and we must begin again to seek permission to make our camp from owners of property."
"If these are the woods," grunted Tom, "there can be no use in going farther. You and Dave trot on ahead, and bring us back word."
"All right," sang out the young leader, "but don't drive onto the ground, or unpack, until we are back with word about the owner's permission."
Three minutes of walking brought them to a farmhouse that looked like the abode of prosperous people.
"Well, what is it?" demanded a stout man, with a good-humored face, as he stepped out from a barn.
"We wish to know, sir," Dick explained, "if you can tell us who owns the woods about a quarter of a mile back, at the right hand side of the road?"
"I think I can," nodded the man. "Will you describe the woods a little more particularly?"