"I'd like to go back and lick him to a standstill!" to his own utter amazement Botts heard his own voice saying thickly. The fire had died out of Lou's face and she replied composedly: "What for? He don't matter any more, does he? We're goin' on." The last sentence recalled his problem once more to his mind. What in the world was he to do with this young creature whom fate had thrust upon his hands? Four quarters and a fifty-cent piece represented his entire capital at the moment, and if he did put her into the hands of the county authorities until his journey was completed and he could make other arrangements for her, it would mean a delay on his part now, when every hour counted for so much just now. "Do you know how far we are from Hudsondale?" he asked. "Not more'n two miles, the farm-hands used to walk there often of an evenin' to the movies." The girl had cleaned her knife in the brook and was now wrapping it in the apron, together with the remains of their repast. "They say that not more'n twenty miles from there you can see the big river, but I ain't ever been." "That's the way I was going," he observed thoughtlessly. "From Hudsondale to Highvale, and right on down the west bank of the river to New York." Lou sat back on her heels reflectively. "All right," she said at last. "I ain't ever figgered on goin's far as New York, but I might as well go there as anywhere, and I guess I kin keep up with you now your back's kinder sprained. We'll go along together." James Botts gulped. "Certainly not!" he retorted severely, when he could articulate. "It's utterly out of the question! You're not a little child any longer, and I'm not old enough to pose as your father. You must think what people would say!" "Why must I?" Her clear eyes shamed him. "What's it matter? I guess two kin puzzle out the roads better than one, an' if I have been in a brick house with a high fence an' a playground between where never a blade of grass grew, for about eighteen years, it looks to me as if I could take care of myself a lot better 'n you kin!" "But you don't understand!" he groaned. "There are certain conditions that I can't very well explain, and if I did you'd think I had gone crazy." "Maybe," Lou observed non-committally, but she settled herself on the bank once more with such an air of resigned anticipation that he felt forced to continue. "You know an army has to obey orders, don't you?" he floundered on desperately. "Well, I'm like a one-man army; there are a lot of rules I've got to follow. This is Monday afternoon, and I must reach New York by midnight on Saturday; that's ninety miles or more, and you never could make it in the world. I've got just a dollar and a half, and I mustn't beg, borrow, or steal food or a lift or anything, but work my way, and never take any job that'll pay me more than twenty-five cents.