"Yep, a lot nearer. Come on; I'll show you as far as I'm goin'," and the boy started off as though the task--or shall I say, pleasure?--of leading four pretty girls was an every-day occurrence. "We never can get there before dark," declared Mollie. "Oh, yes, we will," said Betty, hopefully. "We can walk faster than this." "If you do I'll simply give up," wailed Grace. "These shoes!" and she leaned against a tree. And to the eternal credit of the other girls be it said that they did not remark: "I told you so!" Silently and unconcernedly, the snub-nosed boy led them on. Finally he came to his own home, and rather ungallantly, did not offer to go farther. "You jest keep on for about half a mile," he said, "an' you'll come to a cross-road." "I hope it isn't too cross," murmured Grace, with a grave face. "Huh?" The boy looked at her wonderingly. "I mean not cross enough to bite," she went on. "You turn to the left," the boy continued, "and keep straight on till you get to Watson's Corners. Then you turn to the right, keep on past an old stone church, turn to the right and that's a straight road to Rockford." He looked curiously at Grace, as though in doubt as to her sanity. "A cross road!" he murmured. "Gracious, we'll never remember all that!" exclaimed Amy. "I have it down!" said practical Betty, as she wrote rapidly in her note book. "I'm sure we can find it. Come on, girls!" "Have another candy," invited Grace, hospitably extending the now nearly depleted box. "Sure--thanks!" exclaimed the boy, but he backed quickly away from her. Her joke had fallen on a suspicious mind, evidently. The girls trudged on, rather silent now, for somehow the edge of their enjoyment seemed to have been taken off. But still they were not discouraged. They were true outdoor girls, and they knew, even if worse came to worst, and darkness found them far from their destination, and Betty's aunt's house, that no real harm could come to them. Successfully they found the various points of identification mentioned by the freckled boy, and at last they located a sign-post that read: FIVE MILES TO ROCKFORD "Five miles!" exclaimed Grace, with a tragic air. "We can never do it!" "We must!" declared Betty, firmly. "Of course we can do it. Why, even with going out of our way as we did, we won't have covered more than eighteen miles to-day. And we set twenty as an average." "But this is the first day," said Mollie. "We can--we _must_ get to Rockford to-night," insisted Betty. Rather hopelessly they tramped on. The sun seemed to sink with surprising rapidity after getting to a certain point in the western sky. "It's dropping faster and faster all the while!" cried Amy, as they watched it from a crest of the road. "Never mind--June evenings are the longest of the year," consoled Betty.