This was echoed and re-echoed.  Then the four members of the Camping and Tramping Club started down the pleasant country road, whereon the June sun shone in golden patches through the leafy branches of the trees.

“A good omen,” breathed Amy, who walked beside Betty.

Will, Frank and Allen brought up the rear, carrying the small valises or suitcases the girls had packed.  The little cavalcade passed Mollie’s house, Mrs. Billette appearing at the window to wave another farewell.  The twins were not in sight.

“For which I am thankful—­they’d cry to come,” said their sister, “and they are dreadful teases.”

As the girls and their escorts swung around a turn in the highway a little later, about a mile from Mollie’s house, Grace looked back to cry out in almost tragic accents: 

“Look!  The twins!  They’re following us,” and the others turned around to see Dodo and Paul, hand in hand, trudging bravely and determinedly after them.

CHAPTER X

ON THE WRONG ROAD

Molly, for a moment, looked as if she wanted to cry from sheer vexation, for the getting ready to start had been trying on all of them.  Then the humor of the situation appealed to her, and she exclaimed, as the solemn-eyed twins drew:  nearer: 

“Dodo—­Paul—­what does this mean?  Go back home at once!  Mamma will be dreadfully worried about you.  Go back.”

“We tum too,” lisped Dodo.

“We go for walk wit oo, Mollie,” Paul added.

“The little dears!” murmured Amy.

“You wouldn’t say so if you had to go all the way back with them,” exclaimed the sister.  “Dodo—­Paul, you must go home at once.”

“Dot any tandy?” asked Dodo, seeing, doubtless, a chance to make capital out of the escapade.

“Candy!  The idea!”

“We go back if oo dot tandy,” spoke Paul, cunningly, seeing the drift of his small sister’s scheme.  “We ’ikes tandy.”

“I’ll give them some if they promise to go back,” spoke Grace, making a motion toward her little case that Frank carried.

“No, they must not be bribed,” said Mollie, firmly.  “I shall insist on their going back.  And oh! what faces they have!  They must have been eating candy already this morning.”

“Our tandy all gone,” spoke Dodo.  “Oo dive us tandy we go back; won’t us, Paul?” and confidingly she looked up into her brother’s face.

“We go for tandy,” he affirmed, and there was an air of determination about him that boded no good for the girls.

“You must go back!” declared Mollie.

“We go for walk,” said Dodo.  “Tum on, Paul.  We dot fings to eat same as dem,” and proudly she displayed a very dirty bag, the opening of which disclosed a rather jumbled collection of bread and butter, and cookie crumbs.

“An’ I dot a gun to shoot bad bears,” went on Paul, shouldering a wooden article, that, by a wide stretch of the imagination could be seen to somewhat resemble a musket.  “Gun go bang-bang!” explained the little chap, “bad bears run ’way off.  Turn on, Dodo, we go wif ’em,” and he nodded at the “hikers,” as Will unfeelingly characterized his sister and her chums.