CHAPTER VTHE VOICE FROM THE DISTANCE
"My idea," said Archer, when Tom returned, "is to break that stick about in half and prop the doorr just wide enough open so's we can crawl in. Then we can spread the vines all overr the top just like it was beforre and overr the opening, too. What d'ye say?"
"That's all right," said Tom, "and we can leave it a little open tonight. In the morning we'll drop it and be on the safe side."
"Maybe we'd betterr drop it tonight and be on the safe side," said Archer. "S'pose we should fall asleep."
"We'll take turns sleeping," said Tom decisively. "We can't afford to take any chances."
"You can bet I'm going to get a sooveneerr of this place, anyway," said Archer, tugging at a rusty nail.
"Never you mind about souvenirs," Tom said; "let's get this door camouflaged."
"I could swap that nail for a jack-knife back home," said Archer regretfully. "A nail right fresh from Alsace!"
But he gave it up and together they pulled the tangled vine this way and that, until the door and the opening beneath were well covered. Then they crawled in and while Archer reached up and held the door, Tom broke the stick so that the opening was reduced to the inch or two necessary for ventilation. Reaching out, they pulled the vine over this crack until they felt certain that no vestige of door or opening could be seen from without, and this done they sat down upon the straw, their backs against the walls of the vat, enjoying the first real comfort and freedom from anxiety which they had known since their escape from the prison camp.
"I guess we're safe herre forr tonight, anyway," said Archer, "but believeme, I think we've got some job on our hands getting out of this country. It's going to be no churrch sociable——"
"We got this far," said Tom, "and by tomorrow night we ought to have a good plan doped out. We got nothing to do all day tomorrow but think about it."
"Gee, I feel sorry for these people," said Archer; "they'rre surre up against it. Makes me feel as if I'dlike to have one good whack at Kaiser Bill——"
"Well, don't talk so loud and we'll get a whack at him, all right."
"I'd like to get his old double-jointed moustache for a sooveneerr."
"There you go again," said Tom.
Now that the excitement was over, they realized how tired they were and indeed the strain upon their nerves, added to their bodily fatigue, had brought them almost to the point of exhaustion.
"I'm all in," said Archer wearily.
"All right, go to sleep," said Tom, "and after a while if you don't wake up I'll wake you. One of us has got to stay awake and listen. We can't afford to take any chances."
Archibald Archer needed no urging and in a minute he was sprawled upon the straw, dead to the world. The daylight was glinting cheerily through the interstices of tangled vine over the opening when he awoke with the heedless yawns which he might have given in his own beloved Catskills.
"Don't make a noise," said Tom quickly, by way of caution. "We're in the wine vat in Leteur's vineyard in Alsace, remember." It took Archer a moment to realize where they were. They ate an early breakfast, finding the simple odds and endsgrateful enough, and then Tom took his turn at a nap.
Throughout most of that day they sat with their knees drawn up, leaning against the inside of the great vat, talking in hushed tones of their plans. There was nothing else they could do in the half darkness and the slow hours dragged themselves away monotonously. They had lowered the door, but still left it open upon the merest crack and out of this one or the other would peek at intervals, listening, heart in throat, for the dreaded sound of footfalls. But no one came.
"I thought I hearrd a kind of rustling once," Archer said fearfully.
"There's a couple of cows 'way over in a field," said Tom; "they might have made some sound."
After what seemed to them an age, the leaves over the opening seemed bathed in a strange new light and glistened here and there.
"That crack faces the west," said Tom. "The sun's beginning to go down."
"How do you know?" asked Archer.
"I always knew that up at Temple Camp. I don't knowhowI know. The morning sun is different from the afternoon sun, that's all. I think it'll set now in about two hours."
"I wonder when she'll come," Archer said.
"Not till it's good and dark, that's sure. She's got to be careful. Maybe this place can be seen from the road, for all we know. Remember, we didn't see it in the daylight."
"Sh-h-h," said Archer. "Listen."
From far, far away there was borne upon the still air a dull, spent, booming sound at intervals.
"It's the fighting," whispered Tom.
"Wherre do you suppose it is?" Archer asked, sobered by this audible reminder of their nearness to the seat of war.
"I don't know," Tom said. "I'm kind of mixed up. That feller in the prison had a map. Let's see. I think Nancy's the nearest place to here. Toul is near that. That's where our fellers are—around there. Listen!"
Again the rumbling, faint but distinctly audible, almost as if it came from another world.
"The trenches run right through there—near Nancy," said Tom.
"Maybe it'sourrboys, hey?" Archer asked excitedly.
Tom did not answer immediately. He was thrilled at this thought of his own country speaking so that he, poor fugitive that he was, could hear itin this dark, lonesome dungeon in a hostile land, across all those miles.
"Maybe," he said, his voice catching the least bit. "They're in the Toul sector. A feller in prison told me. You don't feel so lonesome, kind of, when you hear that——"
"Gee, I hope we can get to them," said Archer.
"What yougotto do, you can do," Tom answered. "I wonder——"
"Sh-h. D'you hearr that?" Archer whispered, clutching Tom's shoulder. "It was much nearerr—right close——"
They held their breaths as the reverberation of a sharp report died away.
"What was it?" Archer asked tensely.
"I don't know," Tom whispered, instinctively removing the short stick and closing the trap door tight. "Don't move—hush!"
CHAPTER VIPRISONERS AGAIN
"Do you hear footsteps?" Archer breathed.
Tom listened, keen and alert. "No," he said at last. "There's no one coming."
"What do you s'pose it was?"
"I don't know. Sit down and don't get excited."
But Tom was trembling himself, and it was not until five or ten minutes had passed without sound or happening that he was able to get a grip on himself.
"Push up the door a little and listen," suggested Archer.
Tom cautiously pressed upward, but the door did not budge. "It's stuck," he whispered.
Archer rose and together they pressed, but save for a little looseness the door did not move.
"It's caught outside, I guess," said Tom. "Maybe the iron hasp fell into the padlock when I put it down, huh?"
That, indeed, seemed to be the case, for upon pressure the door gave a little at the corners, but not midway along the side where the fastening was. Archer turned cold at the thought of their predicament, and for a moment even Tom's rather dull imagination pictured the ghastly fate made possible by imprisonment in this black hole.
"There's no use getting excited," he said. "We get some air through the cracks and after dark she'll be here, like she said. It's beginning to get dark now, I guess."
But he could not sit quietly and wait through the awful suspense, and he pressed up against the boards at intervals all the way along the four sides of the door. On the side where the hinges were it yielded not at all. On the opposite side it held fast in the center, showing that by a perverse freak of chance it had locked itself. Elsewhere it strained a little on pressure, but not enough to afford any hope of breaking it.
"If it was only lowerr," Archer said, "so we could brace our shoulderrs against it, we might forrce it."
"And make a lot of noise," said Tom. "There's no use getting rattled; we'll just have to wait till she comes."
"Yes, but it gives you the willies thinkin' about what would happen——"
"Well, don't let's think of it, then," Tom interrupted. "We should worry." And suiting his action to the word, he seated himself, drew up his knees, and clasped his hands over them. "We'll just have to wait, that's all."
"What do you suppose that sound was?" Archer asked.
"I don't know; some kind of a gun. It ain't the first gun that's been shot off in Europe lately."
For half an hour or so they sat, trying to make talk, and each pretended to himself and to the other that he was not worrying. But Tom, who had a scout's ear, started and his heart beat faster at every trifling stir outside. Then, as they realized that darkness must have fallen, they became more alert for sounds and a little apprehensive. They knew Florette would come quietly, but Tom believed he could detect her approach.
After a while, they abandoned all their pretence of nonchalant confidence and did not talk at all. Of course, they knew Florette would come in her own good time, but the stifling atmosphere of that musty hole and the thought of whatmighthappen——
Suddenly there was a slight noise outside and then, to their great relief, the unmistakable sound of footfalls on the planks above them, softened by the thick carpet of matted vine.
"Sh-h, don't speak!" Tom whispered, his heart beating rapidly. "Wait till she unfastens it or says something."
For a few seconds—a minute—they waited in breathless suspense. Then came a slight rustle as from some disturbance of the vine, then footfalls, again, modulated and stealthy they seemed, on the door just above them. A speck of dirt, or an infinitesimal pebble, maybe, fell upon Archer's head from the slight jarring of some crack in the rough door. Then silence.
Breathlessly they waited, Archer nervously clutching Tom's arm.
"Don't speak," Tom warned in the faintest whisper.
Still they waited. But no other sound broke upon the deathlike solitude and darkness....
CHAPTER VIIWHERE THERE'S A WILL——
"They're hunting for us," whispered Tom hoarsely. "It's good it was shut."
"I'd ratherr have them catch us," shivered Archer, "than die in herre."
"We haven't died yet," said Tom, "and they haven't caught us either. Don't lose your nerves. She'll come as soon as she can."
For a few minutes they did not speak nor stir, only listened eagerly for any further sound.
"What do you s'pose that shot was?" Archer whispered, after a few minutes more of keen suspense.
"I don't know. A signal, maybe. They're searching this place for us, I guess. Don't talk."
Archer took comfort from Tom's calmness, and for half an hour more they waited, silent and apprehensive. But nothing more happened, the solemn stillness of the countryside reigned without,and as the time passed their fear of pursuit and capture gave way to cold terror at the thought of being locked in this black, stifling vault to die.
What had happened? What did that shot mean, and where was it? Why did Florette not come? Who had walked across the plank roof of that musty prison? The fact that they could only guess at the time increased their dread and made their dreadful predicament the harder to bear. Moreover, the air was stale and insufficient and their heads began to ache cruelly.
"We can't stand it in here much longer," Tom confessed, after what seemed a long period of waiting. "Pretty soon one of us will be all in and then it'll be harder for the other. We've got to get out, no matter what."
"Therre may be a Gerrman soldierr within ten feet of us now," Archer said. "They'rre probably around in this vineyarrdsomewherre, anyway. If we tried to forrce it open they'd hearr us."
"We couldn't force it, anyway," Tom said.
"My head's pounding like a hammerr," said Archer after a few minutes more of silence.
"Hold some of that damp straw to it.—How many matches did she give you?"
"'Bout a dozen or so."
"Wish I had a knife.—Have you got that piece of wire yet?"
"Surre I have," said Archer, hauling from his pocket about five inches of barbed wire—the treasured memento of his escape from the Hun prison camp. "You laughed at me for always gettin' sooveneerrs; now you see—— What you want it for?"
"Sh-h. How many barbs has it?" asked Tom in a cautious whisper.
"Three."
"Let's have it; give me a couple o' matches, too."
Holding a lighted match under the place where he thought the iron padlock band must be, he scrutinized the under side of the door for any sign of it.
"I thought maybe the ends of the screws would show through," he said.
"What's the idea?" Archer asked. "Gee, but my head's poundin'."
"If that hasp just fell over the padlock eye," Tom whispered, "and didn't fit in like it ought to, maybe if I could bore a hole right under it I could push it up. Don't get scared," he added impassively. "There's another way, too; but it's a lot of work and it would make a noise. We'd just have to settle down and take turns and dig through with the wire barbs. I wish we had more matches. Don't getrattled, now. I know we're in a dickens of a hole——"
"You said something," observed Archer.
"I didn't mean it for a joke," said Tom soberly.
"This has got the trenches beat a mile," Archer said, somewhat encouraged by Tom's calmness and resourcefulness.
Striking another match, Tom examined more carefully the area of planking just in the middle of the side where he knew the hasp must be. He determined the exact center as nearly as he could. While doing this he dug his fingernails under a large splinter in the old planking and pulled it loose. Archer could not see what he was doing, and something deterred him from bothering his companion with questions.
For a while Tom breathed heavily on the splintered fragment. Then he tore one end of it until it was in shreds.
"Let's have another match."
Igniting the shredded end, he blew it deftly until the solid wood was aflame, and by the light of it he could see that Archer was ghastly pale and almost on the point of collapse. Their dank, unwholesome refuge seemed the more dreadful for the light.
"You got to just think about our getting out,"Tom said, in his usual dull manner. "We won't suffocate near so soon if we don't think about it, and don't get rattled. Wegotto get out and so wewillget out. Let's have that wire."
All Archer's buoyancy was gone, but he tried to take heart from his comrade's stolid, frowning face and quiet demeanor.
"We can set fire to the whole business if we have to," said Tom, "so don't get rattled. We ain't going to die. Here, hold this."
Archer held the stick, blowing upon it, while Tom heated an end of the wire, holding the other end in some of the damp straw. As soon as it became red hot he poked it into the place he had selected above him. It took a long time and many heatings to burn a hole an eighth of an inch deep in the thick planking, and their task was not made the pleasanter by the thought that after all it was like taking a shot in the dark. It seemed like an hour, the piece of splintered wood was burned almost away, and what little temper there was in the malleable wire was quite gone from it, when Tom triumphantly pushed it through the hole.
"Strike anything?" Archer asked, in suspense.
"No," said Tom, disappointed. He bent the wire and, as best he could, poked it around outside. "Ithink I can feel it, though. Missed it by about an inch. There's no use getting discouraged. We'll just have to bore another one."
Long afterward, Archibald Archer often recalled the patience and doggedness which Tom displayed that night.
"As long's the first hole has helped us to find something out, it's worth while, anyway," he said philosophically.
Resolutely he went to work again, like the traditional spider climbing the wall, heating the almost limp wire and by little burnings of a sixteenth of an inch or so at a time he succeeded in making another hole through the heavy planking. But this time the wire encountered a metallic obstruction. Sure enough, Tom could feel the troublesome hasp, but alas, the wire was now too limber to push it up.
"I can just joggle it a little," he said, "but it's too heavy for this wire."
However, by dint of doubling and twisting the wire, he succeeded after many attempts and innumerable straightenings of the wire, in joggling the stubborn hasp free from the padlock eye on which it had barely caught.
"There it goes!" he said with a note of triumph in his usually impassive voice.
Instantly Archer's hands were against the door ready to push it up.
"Wait a minute," whispered Tom; "don't fly off the handle. How do we know who's wandering round? Sh-h! Think I want to run plunk into the Prussian soldier that walked over our heads? Take your time."
In his excitement Archer had forgotten that ominous tread above their prison, and he drew back while Tom raised the door to the merest crack and peered cautiously out. The fresh air afforded them infinite relief.
The night was still and clear, the sky thick with stars. Far away a range of black heights was outlined against the sky, and over there the moon was rising. It seemed to be stealthily creeping up out of that battle-scourged plain in France for a glimpse of Alsace. It was from beyond those mountains that had come the portentous rumblings which they had heard.
"The blue Alsatian mountains," murmured Tom. "I wish we were across them."
"We'll have to go down and around if we everr get therre," Archer said.
"Sh-h-h!" warned Tom, putting his head out and peering about while Archer held the lid up.
The moonlight, glinting down through the interstices of the trellised vine, made animated shadows in the quiet vineyard, conjuring the wooden supports and knotty masses of vine stalk into lurking human forms. Here some grim figure waited in silence behind an upright, only to dissolve with the changing light. There an ominous helmet seemed to stir amid the thick growth.
The two fugitives, elated at their deliverance, but tremblingly apprehensive, stood hesitating at so radical a move as complete emergence from their hiding place.
"We can't crawl out of herre in daylight, that's surre," whispered Archer. "D'you think maybe she'll come even now—if we waited?"
"It must be long after midnight," Tom answered. "You wait here and hold the door up while I crawl out. Don't move and don't speak. What's that shining over there? See?"
"Nothin' but an old waterring can."
"All right—sh-h-h!"
Cautiously, silently, Tom crept out, peering anxiously in every direction. Stealthily he raised himself. Then suddenly he made a low sound and with a rapidity which startled Archer, dropped to his hands and knees.
"What's the matterr?" Archer whispered. "Come inside—quick!"
But Tom was engrossed with something on the ground.
"What is it?" Archer whispered anxiously. "His footprints?"
"Yop," said Tom, less cautiously. "Come on out. He's standing over there in the field now. Come on out, don't be scared."
Archer did not know what to make of it, but he crept out and looked over to the adjacent field where Tom pointed. A kindly, patient cow, one of those they had seen before, was grazing quietly, partaking of a late lunch in the moonlight.
"Here's her footprint," said Tom simply. "She gave us a good scare, anyway."
"Well—I'll—be——" Archer began.
"Sh-h!" warned Tom. "We don't know yet why Frenchy's sister don't come. But there weren't any soldiers here—that's one sure thing. We had a lot of worry for nothin'. Come on."
CHAPTER VIIITHE HOME FIRE NO LONGER BURNS
"That's the first time I was everr scarred by a cow," said Archer, his buoyant spirit fully revived, "but when I hearrd those footsteps overr my head,go-od night! It's good you happened to think about looking for footprints, hey?"
"I didn'thappento," said Tom. "I always do. Same as you never forget to get a souvenir," he added soberly.
"I'd like to get a sooveneerr from that cow, hey?Youneedn't talk; if it hadn't been for that wire, where'd we be now? Sooveneerrs arre all right. But I admit you've got to have ideas to go with 'em."
"Thanks," said Tom.
"Keep the change," said Archer jubilantly. "Believe me, I don't carre what becomes of me as long as I'm above ground—on terra cotta——"
"We've got to get away from here before daylight, so come on," interrupted Tom.
"Are we going up to the house?"
"What else can we do?"
The explanation of those appalling footfalls by no means explained the failure of Florette to keep her promise, and the fugitives started along the path which led to the house.
They walked very cautiously, Tom scrutinizing the earth-covered planking for any sign of recent passing. The door of the stone kitchen stood open, which surprised them, and they stole quietly inside. A lamp stood upon the table, but there was no sign of human presence.
Tom led the way on tiptoe through the passage where they had passed before, and into the main room where another lamp revealed a ghastly sight. The heavy shutters were closed and barred, just as Florette had closed them when she had brought the boys into the room. Upon the floor lay old Pierre, quite dead, with a cruel wound, as from some blunt instrument, upon his forehead. His whitish gray hair, which had made him look so noble and benignant, was stained with his own blood. Blood lay in a pool about his fine old head, and the old coat which he wore had been torn from him, showing the stump of the arm which he had so long ago given to his beloved France.
Near him lay sprawled upon the floor a soldier in a gray uniform, also dead. A little bullet wound in his temple told the tale. Beside him was a black helmet with heavy brass chin gear. Archer picked it up with trembling hands. Across its front was a motto:
"Mitt Gott—und Vaterland."
"Mitt Gott—und Vaterland."
The middle of it was obscured by the flaring German coat-of-arms. A pistol lay midway between the two bodies and part of an old engraved motto was still visible on that. Tom could make out the name Napoleon.
"What d'you s'pose happened?" whispered Archer, aghast.
Tom shook his head. "Come on," said he. "Let's look for the others."
Taking the lamp, he led the way silently through the other rooms. On a couch in one of these was laid a soldier's uniform and a loose paper upon the floor showed that it had but lately been unwrapped. There was no sign of Florette or her mother, and Tom felt somewhat relieved at this, for he had feared to find them dead also.
"What d'you think it means?" Archer asked again, as they returned to the room of death.
"I suppose they came for her just like she said," Tom answered in a low tone. "Her father must have shot the soldier, and probably whoever killed the old man took her and her mother away."
He looked down at the white, staring face of old Pierre and thought of how the old soldier had risen from his seat and had stood waiting with his fine military air at the moment of his own arrival at the shadowed and stricken home. He remembered how the old man had waited eagerly for his daughter to translate his and Archer's talk and of his humiliation at the shabby hospitality he must offer them. He took the helmet, a grim-looking thing, from the table where Archer had laid it, and read again, "Mitt Gott——"
It seemed to Tom that this was all wrong—that God must surely be on the side of old Pierre, no matter what had happened.
"Do you know what I think?" he said simply. "I think it was just the way I said—and like she said. They came to get her and maybe they didn't treat her just right, and her father hit one of them. Or maybe he shot him first off. Anyway, I think that soldier suit must be the one Frenchy had to wear, 'cause he told me that the boys in Alsace had to drill even before they got out of school. I guess shewas going to bring it to us so one of us could wear it.... We got to feel sorry for her, that's one sure thing."
It was Tom's simple, blunt way of expressing the sympathy which surged up in his heart.
"I liked her; she treated us fine," said Archer.
For a few seconds Tom did not answer; then he said in his old stolid way, "I don't know where they took her or what they'll make her do, but anybody could see she didn't have any muscle. Whenever I think of her I'll fight harder, that's one sure thing."
For a few moments he could hardly command himself as he contemplated this tragic end of the broken home. Florette, whom he had seen but yesterday, had been taken away—away from her home, probably from her beloved Alsace, to enforced labor for the Teuton tyrant. He recalled her slender form as she hurried through the darkness ahead of them, her gentle apology for their poor reception, her wistful memories of her brother as she showed them their hiding-place, her touching grief and apprehension as she stood talking with him under the trellis....
And now she was gone and awful thoughts of her peril and suffering welled up in Tom's mind.
He looked at the stark figure and white, staring face of old Pierre and thought of the impetuous embrace the old man had given him. He thought of his friend, Frenchy. And the mother—where was she? Good people, kind people; trying in the menacing shadow of the detestable Teuton beast to keep their flickering home fire burning. And this was the end of it.
Most of all, he thought of Florette and her wistful, fearful look haunted him. "Maybe for ze great Krupps"—the phrase lingered in his mind and he stood there appalled at the realization of this awful, unexplained thing which had happened.
Then Tom Slade did something which his scout training had taught him to do, while Archer, tremulous and unstrung, stood awkwardly by, watching. He knelt down over the lifeless form of the old man and straightened the prostrate figure so that it lay becomingly and decently upon the hard floor. He bent the one arm and laid it across the breast in the usual posture of dignity and peace. He took the threadbare covering from the old melodeon and placed it over the face. So that the last service for old Pierre Leteur was performed by an American boy; and at least the ashes of the home fire were left in order by a scout from far across the seas.
"It's part of first aid," explained Tom quietly, as he rose; "I learned how at Temple Camp."
Archer said nothing.
"When a scout from Maryland died up there, I saw how they did it."
"You got to thank the scouts for a lot," said Archer; "forr trackin' an' trailin'——"
"'Tain't on account of them," said Tom, his voice breaking a little, "it's on account of her——"
And he kneeled again to arrange the corner of the cloth more neatly over the wrinkled, wounded face....
CHAPTER IXFLIGHT
"Anyway, we've got to get away from here quick," said Tom, pulling himself together; "never mind about clothes or anything. One thing sure, they'll be back here soon. See if he has a watch," he added, indicating the dead soldier.
"No, but he's got a little compass around his neck; shall I take it?"
"Sure, we got a right to capture anything from the enemy."
"He's got some papers, too."
"All right, take 'em. Come on out through the kitchen way—hurry up. Don't make any noise. You look for some food—I'll be with you right away."
Tom crept cautiously out to the road and, kneeling, placed his ear to the ground. There was no sound, and he hurried back to the stone kitchen where Archer was stuffing his pockets with such dry edibles as he could gather.
"All right, come on," he whispered hurriedly. "What have you got?"
"Some hard bread and a couple of salt fish——"
"Give me one of those," Tom interrupted: "and hand me that tablecloth. Come on. Got some matches?"
"Yes, and a candle, too."
"Good. Don't strike a light. You go ahead, along the plank walk."
Leaving the scene of the tragedy, they hurried along the board walk under the trellis, Tom dragging the tablecloth so that it swept both of the narrow planks and obliterated any suggestion of footprints. When they had gone about fifty yards he stooped and flung the salt fish from him so that it barely skimmed the earth and rested at some distance from the path.
"If they should have any dogs with 'em, that'll take 'em off the trail," he said.
"I'm sorry I didn't get you a souveneerr too," said Archer, as they hurried along.
This was the first intimation Tom had that Archer regarded the little compass merely as a souvenir.
"You can give me those papers you took," he said, half in joke.
"It's only an envelope," Archer said. "Have you got your button all right?"
"Sure."
When they reached the wine vat, Tom threw the old tablecloth into it, and pulled the vine more carefully so as to conceal the door. They were tempted to rest here, but realized that if they spent the balance of the night in their former refuge it would mean another long day in the dank hole.
The vineyard ended a few yards from the wine vat and beyond was an area of open lowlands across which the boys could see a range of low wooded hills.
"We've got about four hours till daylight," said Tom; "let's make for those woods."
"That's east," said Archer. "Wewant to go south."
"We want to see where we're going before we go anywhere," Tom answered. "If we can get into the woods on those hills, we can climb a tree tomorrow and see where we're at. What I want is a bird's-eye squint to start off with, 'cause we can't ask questions of anybody."
"No, and believe me, we don't want to run into any cities," said Archer. "We got through one night anyway, hey?"
Notwithstanding that they were without shelter, and facing the innumerable perils of a hostile country about which they knew nothing, they still found action preferable to inaction and their spirits rose as they journeyed on with the star-studded sky overhead.
They found the meadows low and marshy, which gratified Tom who was always fearful of leaving footprints. The hills beyond were low and thickly wooded, the face of the nearest being broken by slides and forming almost a precipice surmounted by a jumble of rocks and underbrush. The country seemed wild and isolated enough.
"I suppose it's the beginning of the Alps, maybe," Tom panted as they scrambled up.
"There's nobody up here, that's surre," Archer answered.
"We'll just lie low till daylight and see if we can get a squint at the country. Then tomorrow night we'll hike it south. If we go straight south we'vegotto come to Switzerland."
"It's lucky we've got the compass," said Archer.
"Maybe this is a ridge we're on," Tom said. "If it is, we're in luck. We may be able to go thirty or forty miles along it. One thing sure, it'll be more hilly the farther south we get 'cause we'll be gettinginto the beginning of the Alps. There ought to be water up here."
"I wish there were some apples," said Archer.
"You're always thinking about apples and souvenirs. Let's crawl in under here."
They had scrambled to the top of the precipitous ascent and found themselves upon the broken edge of the forest amid a black chaos of piled up rock and underbrush. Evidently, the land here was giving way, little by little, for here and there they could see a tree canting tipsily over the edge, its network of half-exposed roots making a last gallant stand against the erosive process and helping to hold the weight of the great boulders which ere long would crash down into the marshy lowlands.
They crept into a sort of leafy cave formed by a fallen tree and stretched their weary bodies and relaxed their tense nerves after what had seemed a nightmare.
"As long as we're going to join the army," said Tom, "we might as well make a rule now. We won't both sleep at the same time till we're out of Germany. We got to live up to that rule no matter how tired we get."
"I'm game," said Archer. "You go to sleep now and when I get good and sleepy I'll wake you up."
"In about two hours," said Tom. "Then you can sleep till it's light. Then we'll see if it's safe to stay here. Keep looking in that direction—the way we came. And if you see any lights, wake me up."
Archer did not obey these directions at all, for he sat with his hands clasped over his knees, gazing down across the dark marshland below. Two hours, three hours, four hours, he sat there and scarcely stirred. And as the time dragged on and there were no lights and no sounds he took fresh courage and hope. He was beginning to realize the value of the stolid determination, the resourcefulness, the keen eye and stealthy foot and clear brain of the comrade who lay sleeping at his side. He had wanted to tell Tom Slade what he thought of him and how he trusted him, but he did not know how. So he just sat there, hour in and hour out, and let the weary pathfinder of Temple Camp sleep until he awoke of his own accord.
"All right," said Archer then, blinking. "Nothing happened."
CHAPTER XTHE SOLDIER'S PAPERS
All that day they stayed in their leafy refuge. They could look down across the marshy meadows they had crossed to the trellised vineyard of the Leteurs, looking orderly and symmetrical in the distance like a two-storied field, and beyond that the massive gables of the gray, forsaken house.
They could see the whole neighboring country in panorama. Other houses were discernible at infrequent intervals along the road which wound southward through the lowland between the hills where the boys were and the Vosges Mountains (the "Blue Alsatian Mountains") to the west. Through the long, daylight hours Tom studied the country carefully. Now, as never before (for he knew how much depended on it), he watched for every scrap of knowledge which might afford any inference or deduction to help them in their flight.
"You can see how it is," he told Archer, as theywatched the little compass needle, waiting for it to settle. "This is a ridge and it runs north and south. I kind of think it's the west side of the valley of a river, like Daggett's Hills are to Perch River up your way."
"I'd like to be therre now," said Archer.
"I'd rather be in France," Tom answered.
"Of course it'll fizzle out in places and we'll come to villages, but there's enough woods ahead of us for us to go twenty miles tonight. That's the way it seems to me, anyway."
Once Tom ventured out on hands and knees into the woods in quest of water, and returned with the good news that he had had a refreshing drink from a brook to which he directed Archer.
"Do you know what this is?" he said, emptying an armful of weeds on the ground. "It's chicory. If I dared to build a fire I could make you a good imitation of coffee with that. But we can eat the roots, anyway. Now I remember it used to be in the geography in school about so much chicory growing in the Alps——"
"Oh, Ebeneezerr!" shouted Archer, much to Tom's alarm. "I'm glad you said that 'cause it reminds me about the mussels."
"Thewhat?"
"'The mountain streams abound with the pearrl-bearing mussels which are a staple article of diet with the Alpine natives,'" quoted Archer in declamatory style. "I had to write that two hundred and fifty times f'rr whittlin' a hole in the desk——"
"I s'pose you were after a souvenir," said Tom dryly.
"Firrst I wrote it once 'n' then I put two hundred and forty-nine ditto marrks.Ebenezerr!Wasn't the teacherr mad! I had to write it two hundred and fifty times f'rr vandalism and two hundred and fifty morre f'rr insolence."
"Served you right," said Tom.
"Oh, I guess you weren't such an angel in school either!" said Archer. "I'll never forget about those pearrl-bearing mussels as long as I live—you can bet!"
Tom separated the chicory roots from the stalks and Archer went to wash them in the stream. In a little while he returned with a triumphant smile all over his round, freckled face and half a dozen mussels in his cupped hands.
"Nowwhat have you got to say, huh? It's good I whittled that desk and was insolent—you can bet!"
Tom's practical mind did not quite appreciate this line of reasoning, but he was glad enough to see themussels, the very look of which was cool and refreshing.
"I always said I had no use for geographies except to put mustaches and things on the North Pole explorers and high hats on Columbus and Henry Hudson, but, believeme, I'm glad I remembered about those pearrl-bearing mussels—hey, Slady? I hope the Alpine natives don't take it into their heads to come up herre afterr any of 'em just now. I just rooted around in the mud and got 'em. Look at my hand, will you?"
They made a sumptuous repast of wet, crisp chicory roots and "pearrl-bearing mussels" as Archer insisted upon calling them, although they found no pearls. The meal was refreshing and not half bad. There was a pleasant air of stealth and cosiness about the whole thing, lying there in their leafy refuge in the edge of the woods with the Alsatian country stretched below them. Perhaps it was the mussels out of the geography (to quote Archer's own phrase) as well as the sense of security which came as the uneventful hours passed, but as the twilight gathered they enjoyed a feeling of safety, and their hope ran high. They had found, as the scout usually finds, that Nature was their friend, never withholding her bounty fromhim who seeks and uses his resourcefulness and brains.
All through the long afternoon they could distinguish heavy army wagons with dark spots on their canvas sides (the flaring, arrogant German crest which allied soldiers had grown to despise) moving northward along the distant road. They looked almost like toy wagons. Sometimes, when the breeze favored, they could hear the rattle of wheels and occasionally a human voice was faintly audible. And all the while from those towering heights beyond came the spent, muffled booming.
"I'd like to know just what's going on over there," Tom said as he gazed at the blue heights. "Maybe those wagons down there on the road have something to do with it. If there's a big battle going on they may be bringing back wounded and prisoners.—Some of our own fellers might be in 'em."
They tried to determine about where, along that far-flung line, the sounds arose, but they could only guess at it.
"All I know is what I hearrd 'em say in the prison camp," said Archer; "that our fellers are just the otherr side of the mountains."
"That would be Nancy," said Tom thoughtfully.
"That Loquet feller that got capturred in a raid," Archer said, "told me the Americans were all around therre, just the otherr side of the mountains—in a lot of differrent villages: When they get through training they send 'em ahead to the trenches. Some of 'em have been in raids already, he said."
"You have to run like everything in a raid," said Tom. "I'd like to be in one, wouldn't you?"
"Depends on which way I was running.—Let's have a look at these paperrs before it gets too darrk, hey?" he added, hauling from his pocket the papers which he had taken from the dead Boche. "I neverr thought about 'em till just now?"
"I thought about it," said Tom, who indeed seldom forgot anything, "but I didn't say anything about it 'cause it kind of makes me think about what happened—I mean how they took her away," he added, in his dull way.
For a minute they sat silently gazing down at the vineyard which was now touched with the first crimson rays of sunset.
"You can just see the chimney," Tom said; "see, just left of that big tree.—I hope I don't see Frenchy any more now 'cause I wouldn't like to have to tell him——"
"We don't know what happened," said Archer. "Maybe therre werren't any otherr soldierrs; she may have escaped—and her motherr, too."
"It's more likely therewereothers, though," said Tom. "I keep thinking all the time how scared she was and it kind of——"
"Let's look at the papers," said Archer.
The German soldier must have been a typical Boche, for he carried with him the customary baggage of written and statistical matter with which these warriors sally forth to battle.
"He must o' been a walking correspondence school," said Archer, unfolding the contents of the parchment envelope. "Herre's a list—all in German. Herre's some poetry—or I s'pose it's poetry, 'cause it's printed all in and out."
"Maybe it's a hymn of hate," said Tom.
"Herre's a map, and herre's a letter. All in Gerrman—even the map. Anyway, I can't understand it."
"Looks like a scout astronomy chart," said Tom. "It's all dots like the big dipper."
"Do you s'pose it means they're going to conquer the sky and all the starrs and everything?" Archer asked. "Here's a letter, it's dated about two weeks ago—I can make out the numbers all right."
The letter was in German, of course, and Archer, who during his long incarceration in the prison camp had picked up a few scraps of the language, fell to trying to decipher it. The only reward he had for his pains was a familiar word which he was able to distinguish here and there and which greatly increased their desire to know the full purport of the letter.
"Herre's President Wilson's name.—See!" said Archer excitedly. "And herre'sAmerica——"
"Yes, and there it is again," said Tom. "That must beYankees, see? Something or other Yankees. It's about a mile long."
"Jim-min-nitty!" said Archer, staring at the word (presumably a disparaging adjective) which preceded the wordYankees. "It's got one—two—three—wait a minute—it's got thirty-seven letters to it.Go-o-od night!"
"And that must be Arracourt," said Tom. "I heard about that place—it ain't so far from Nancy. Gee, I wish we could read that letter!"
"I'd like to know what kind of a Yankee a b-l-o-e——"
But Archer gave it up in despair.