We looked round in perplexity. There was no house in sight; but here was a barn, and the door was ajar. We went in. It was empty of hay or cattle. The barn looked curiously familiar; but it was not till we perceived the torn newspapers and the pieces of split oak brace on the floor that the full truth dawned on us. It was the old Plancher barn! We had run five miles through the woods, only to reach the place from which we had started. John looked at me, and I looked at Willis. A sense of utter bewilderment fell on us. John and I did not even think to revile Willis. In fact, we were terrified. All hope of dinner, or of reaching home at all that night, deserted us. The storm was increasing; the late November day was at an end. For a while we scarcely spoke. John Eastman, who was the youngest, began to cry. The old barn creaked dismally as each gust of wind racked it, and loose boards rattled and banged. No created place can be more dreary than an old and empty barn. After our exertions we soon felt very chilly. We should not have dared build a fire in the barn, even if we had had matches. Willis groped about in the old hay bay and gathered a few handfuls of musty hay, which we spread on the barn floor, and then lay down as snugly together as we could nestle, but nothing that we could do sufficed to warm us, and we lay shivering for what seemed hours. John and I finally fell asleep, and perhaps Willis did also, although he always denied it. At last he waked us, shaking us violently. "You mustn't sleep!" he exclaimed. "You'll freeze to death and never wake up!" "It's getting terribly cold," he continued; "we'd better get up and jump round." But John and I did not wish to stir from that one small slightly warmed spot. Our toes and fingers ached. A fine dust of snow sifted down on our faces; and how that old barn did creak! A gale was raging. "I guess it would be warmer under the barn floor," Willis said, at last. "There's almost always old dry stuff under a barn floor. If we can only lift up a plank or two, we'll get down there." "Yes, let's do it!" quavered John. "If we get under the floor the barn won't kill us, maybe, if it blows down." Willis crept to the ends of the floor planks, next the lean-to, and tried first one and then another. Soon he found one that could be raised and tipped it over, making an aperture large enough to descend through. It was "pokerish" moving about in the dark; but we thrust down our legs and found that there was dry chaff and hay there. Willis let himself down and felt around, and then bade us get down beside him. We snuggled together under the floor, and with our hands banked the old stuff about our shivering bodies. It seemed safer down there, and we felt the wind less, but lay listening to the gusts--expecting with every one to hear the barn fall over us.