“ Hang it all!” broke out East, as soon as he had got wind enough, pulling off his hat and mopping at his face, all spattered with dirt and lined with sweat, from which went up a thick steam into the still, cold air. “I told you how it would be. What a thick I was to come! Here we are, dead beat, and yet I know we're close to the run in, if we knew the country.”
“ Well,” said Tom, mopping away, and gulping down his disappointment, “it can't be helped. We did our best anyhow. Hadn't we better find this lane, and go down it, as young Brooke told us?”
“ I suppose so—nothing else for it,” grunted East. “If ever I go out last day again.” Growl, growl, growl.
So they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and found the lane, and went limping down it, plashing in the cold puddly ruts, and be
