Billy consented, and they strolled away in the dark. The general, who thought he was talking politics, was laying down the law to the hotel clerk, and Henrietta and Bartlett were left alone. They lingered a moment on the porch and then quietly disappeared up the road in the opposite direction from that taken by Billy and the Watermelon. Bartlett’s desire was to reach Maine as soon as possible and get lost over Saturday, but to avoid every city and larger town on the way and to hurry by the smaller places where there might be telegraph or telephone connections. "Out of touch of the world for a week," he was fond of repeating, "no letters, no papers, no worries and no nerves." And his desire was the Watermelon’s. The more they avoided towns, the better the youth liked it. Telegraph and telephone stations were zealously shunned. He would have liked to have seen a paper, so as to judge what the police thought in the case of the theft of the wealthy young stock-broker’s car, provided Batchelor had allowed the thing to become public, which he very much doubted, from the little he knew of the man’s character. It was hardly an episode one would care to see in print if one was dignified and self-made. And the Watermelon chuckled. It took them longer than Bartlett hoped, sticking to narrow, unused country roads, and the next night found them still in Vermont. They spent the night at the village boarding-house, and once again Billy and the Watermelon went down the road a bit to look at the universe, and Henrietta and Bartlett went up the road. The following day, to Bartlett’s satisfaction, they got lost. It was late in the afternoon when they stopped at Milford, a small town in New Hampshire, and made inquiries about the next town. Was it far and would the accommodations be good? It wasn’t far, the farmer whom they questioned, assured them, only five miles. He directed them how to go and they thanked him and pushed on. They went on and on and nightfall found them in a lonely bit of wooded road apparently miles from any town or habitation. Bartlett was pleased. They were lost, and by great good luck they might remain lost for a considerable length of time. The general, too, was delighted. They would make a night of it. It was what he had long wanted to do and now they would have to. The lunch basket had been filled earlier in the day at a country store, so there would be enough to eat. The seats of the autos were soft and one could sleep in the cars or on the ground, as one preferred. It was warm and the rugs and shawls would be covering enough. They ran the cars out of the road to a convenient clearing. Henrietta got out the basket, shawls were spread on the ground in the light of the two cars and they prepared to make the best of things. "This is like old times," declared the general genially; "a night on the march, far out on the prairies, not a thing in sight, not a sound but a coyote yelping or the cry of a wolf."