n screamed.

"That's all there is to it. I'll stop here, an' you fellers can keep on
if you like."

"But, Joe, if there was woods somewhere near I wouldn't say a word. How
can you hide where there's so many houses close 'round?"

"I don't count on hidin', 'cause I can't afford it. Even if them lawyers
get hold of me to-morrer mornin', I'm goin' to stop here."

"Right here in the road?" Plums asked, with less anxiety than he would
have shown an hour before, when he was not so tired.

"Well, I don't mean to say I'll camp down in the road. But you fellers
listen to me. If the detectives are out after us, an' I s'pose, of
course, they are, we sha'n't be any safer twenty miles away than in this
very spot. We've got to stop sometime, an' it may as well be now. I
promised to go back to see the princess in two days, an' I'll keep my
word."

"But where'll you stay all that time?" Dan asked, as if believing this
was a question which could not be satisfactorily answered.

"I don't know yet; but I'm thinkin' of goin' up to that house," and Joe
pointed to a tiny cottage, which in the gloom could be but dimly seen
amid a clump of trees. "There's a light in the window, so of course the
folks are awake. I'll ask 'em if they haven't got work enough about the
place sich as I could do to pay my board over one day, an' if they say
no, I'll try at the next house."

"You might as well go right into jail as do a thing like that," Dan
said, angrily.

"I ain't so sure but it would have been a good deal better if I had, for
by this time the princess would be with her folks, where she belongs."

"It seems to me you're terribly stuck on that kid."

"Well, what if I am!" and Joe spoke so sharply that Master Fernald did
not think it wise to make any reply.

During fully a moment the three stood silently in the road looking at
each other, and then Joe asked of Master Plummer:

"Will you come with me?"

The possibility of resting his tired limbs in a regular bed appealed
strongly to the fat boy, and, understanding that he was about to agree
to Joe's proposition, Dan said, gloomily:

"This is what a feller gets for tryin' to help you two out of a scrape.
I've kept the detectives away so far, an' now you're goin' to give me
the dead shake."

"There's no reason why you couldn't stay with us--"

"You won't catch me in a house for another month, anyhow."

[Illustration: "JOE POINTED TO A TINY COTTAGE."]

The argument which followed