The ground under their feet was now a bright beautiful yellow, powdered all over with little white dots that proved to be daisies.  With shouts of delight, Ann and Peter stooped to gather these, but Rudolf cried out:  “Oh, look, look!  Don’t let’s stop here.  It’s prettier yet farther on!” So on they ran, all three of them, over the yellow ground, over a stretch of green and blue checks, across a lavender meadow, and found themselves at last in a wonderful pale blue field scattered all over with bunches of little pink roses.

“This is the prettiest yet,” exclaimed Ann, “though of course it is very old-fashioned.  I wonder what it reminds me of?  Ruddy, do you remember that picture of Aunt Jane when she was little in such a funny dress with low neck and short sleeves—­”

The children had been wandering across the field as Ann spoke, stopping to pull a rose here and there, too busy and too happy to notice where their feet were taking them.  All at once they looked up and saw that they had come to the end of the pale blue field where it bordered on a broad brown road.  Just ahead of them stood a little white tent, and from the door of the tent two tin soldiers suddenly sprang out, shouldered arms, and cried:  “Halt!”

Of course the children halted.  There was nothing else to do, so astonished were they to meet any one when they had supposed themselves to be in quite a wild and uninhabited country.  Besides, though these were small and tinny-looking, yet soldiers are soldiers wherever you meet them, and have an air about them which makes people feel respectful.  These two handled their little guns in a most businesslike manner.  The taller of the two, who seemed by his uniform to be a superior officer, now stepped forward and snapped out:  “Give the countersign!”

The children stood still and stared, Peter with his thumb in his mouth.

“We haven’t got any, sir, so we can’t give it to you,” said Ann at last.

“Silly!  He means say it,” whispered Rudolf in her ear.

“We can’t say it either,” Ann went on, “because we don’t know it.  But we know lots of other things,” she added, looking pleadingly at the officer.  “Rudolf, he can say the whole of ’’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse’—­and I can say ’The Gentle Cow all Red and White I Love with all my Heart’,—­and Peter he says ’I have a Little Shadow’,—­he knows it all, every word!”

The little officer turned sharply to his companion.  “Make a note of that, Sergeant,” he snorted.  “Head it, suspicious information:  first prisoner, probably dangerous burglar burgling on Christmas eve; second prisoner, cattle thief; third prisoner—­”

“But we aren’t anything like that,” broke in Rudolf hastily.  “You’re entirely mistaken, we—­”

“Say what you are, then,” snapped the officer, “and where you have come from and where you are going and what you are going to do when you get there; say it, quick!” And raising his little gun, the officer pointed it straight at Rudolf’s nose.