CHAPTER XXIIITHE CATSKILL VOLCANO IN ERUPTION
All day long the dull, drizzling rain continued, and as the hours passed their hope revived and their courage strengthened.
"Therre's one thing I'm glad of," said Archer, "and that's that I thought about putting that Gerrman soldierr's paperrs in the glove. I've got a hunch I'd like to know what that letterr says."
"I'm glad you did," said Tom. "I got to admitIdidn't think of it."
By evening Tom's knee was much better though still sore, and his head pained not at all. They had but one thought now—to swim to shore and get into the mountains where they believed they could continue their course southward. Swimming to the nearest point on the east, or Baden bank, would, they could see by the glass, bring them into a fairly thickly populated district and how to get past this and into the protecting highlands troubled them.They had thus far avoided civilization and towns, where they knew the ever-watchful eye of Prussian authority was to be feared. They knew well enough that their wet garments constituted no disguise; but they could, at least, get to shore and see how the land lay.
They were greatly elated at their success so far, and at their providential reunion. Whatever difficulties they had encountered they had surmounted, and whatever difficulties lay ahead they would meet and overcome, they felt sure.
As the day wore away, the rain ceased, but the sky remained dull and murky. Their plan was to wait for the darkness and they were talking over their good luck and what they thought the rosy outlook when Tom, looking toward the Alsatian shore with the glass, saw a small boat which was scarcely distinguishable in the hazy twilight.
"I don't believe it's coming this way," he said confidently, handing the glass to Archer. But at the same time he was conscious of a sinking sensation.
"Yes, it is," said Archer; "it's coming right for us."
"Maybe they're just rowing across," said Tom.
Archer watched the boat intently. "It's comingherre all right," he said; "we'rre pinched. Let's get inside, anyway."
Tom smiled with a kind of sickly resignation. "Let's see," he said; "yes, you're right, they've got uniforms, too. It's all up. We might have had sense enough to know. I bet they traced us all the way through Alsace. There's no use trying to beat that crowd," he added in cynical despair.
Hope dashed when it is just reviving brings the most hopeless of all despair, and with Tom, whose nerves had been so shaken, their imminent capture seemed now like a kind of mockery.
"When I found you were all right," he said to Archer in his dull way, "and we were all alone here, I might have known it was too good to be true. I wouldn't bother now. I just got bad luck.—When I tried for the pathfinders' badge and tracked somebody that stole something," he added with his stolid disregard for detail, "I found it was my own father, and I didn't claim the badge. That's the kind of luckIgot. So I wouldn't try any more. 'Cause if you got bad luck you can't help it. I dropped my knife and the blade stuck in the ground—up at Temple Camp—and that's bad luck. Let 'em come——"
"IT'S FIFTY-FIFTY,--TWO AGAINST TWO," SAID ARCHER. Page 153"IT'S FIFTY-FIFTY,—TWO AGAINST TWO," SAID ARCHER. Page 153
This side of Tom Slade was new to Archer, and he stared curiously at the lowering face of his companion.
"That's what you call losing your morale," he said; "if you lose that—go-odnight! Suppose General Joffre said that when the Huns werre hitting it forr Paris! S'poseIsaid that when my foot stuck in the mud on the bottom of this plaguey riverr!"
"I didn't know that," said Tom.
"Well, you know it now," retorted Archer, "and I don't give up till they land me back in prison, and I don't give up then, eitherr. And I ain't lettin' any jack-knives getmygoat—so you can chalk that up in yerr little old noddle!"
"I guess that's the trouble," Tom began; "my head aches——"
"Can you swim now?" Archer demanded.
"You go," said Tom; "my knee's too stiff."
"If you everr say a thing like that to me again," said Archer, his eyes snapping and his freckled face flushing scarlet, "I'll——"
"I didn't think we'd start till midnight," Tom said, "and I thought my knee'd be well enough by that time."
The little boat, as they could see from the doorway, bobbed nearer and nearer and Archer could see that it contained two men.
"They've got on uniforms," Archer said, "but I can't see what they arre. Let's keep inside."
"They know we're here," said Tom; "they'd only shoot us if we started away."
Closer and closer came the little boat until one of its occupants jumped out, hauling it into one of the little rocky caverns of the islet. Then both came striding up to the doorway.
As soon as they caught sight of the boys they paused aghast and seemed to be much more discomfited than either Tom or Archer. Evidently they had not come for the fugitives and the thought occurred to Archer that they might be fugitives themselves.
"Vell, vat you do here, huh?" one asked.
Archer was managing this affair and he managed it in his own sweet way.
"We're herre because we're herre," he said, in a perfect riot of rolling R's.
"You German—no?"
"No, thank goodness! We'rre not," Archer said recklessly. "Are we pinched?"
"How you come here?" the German demanded in that tone of arrogant severity which seems to imply, "I give you and the whole of the rest of the world two seconds to answer."
Tom, whose spirits revived at this rather puzzling turn of affairs, watched the two soldiers keenly and noticed that neither had sword or firearms. And he realized with chagrin that in those few moments of "lost morale," he had been strangely unworthy of himself and of his scout training. And feeling so he let Archer do the talking.
"We're Americans."
"Americans, ach! From prison you escape, huh?" the younger soldier snapped. "You haff a peekneek here, huh?" And turning to his companion he poured a kind of guttural volley at him, which his comrade answered with a brisk return of heavy verbal fire. Archer, listening intently and using his very rudimentary knowledge of German, gathered that whoever and whatever these two were, they were themselves in the perilous business of escaping.
"They'rre in the same box as we are," he said to Tom. "Don't worry."
It did not occur to the boys then, though they often thought of it afterward, when their acquaintance with the strange race of Huns had been improved, that these two soldiers manifested not the slightest interest in the experiences which the boys had gone through. Almost immediately and without condescending to any discourse with them, thetwo men fell to discussing how they mightusethem, just as their masters had used Belgium and would use Switzerland and Holland if it fell in with their purpose.
After the generous interest that Frenchy and his people had shown and the lively curiosity about his adventures which British Tommies in the prison camp had displayed, Tom was unable to understand this arrogant disregard. Even a greasy, shifty-eyed Serbian in the prison had asked him about America and "how it felt" to be torpedoed.
It was not just that the two soldiers regarded the boys as enemies, either. They simply were not German and therefore nothing that they did or said counted or was worth talking about.
At last the one who seemed to be the spokesman said, "Ve make a treaty, huh?"
It was more of an announcement than a question, and Archer looked at Tom and laughed.
"A treaty!" said he. "Goodnight! Do you mean a scrap o' paperr?"
"Ve let you off," said the German in a tone of severe condescension. "Ve gif you good clothes—here," he added, seeming unable to get away from his manner of command. "Ve go feeshing. Ve say nutting—ve let you go. You escape—ach, vatiss dis?" he added deprecatingly. "Ve say nutting."
"And we don't say anything eitherr, is that it?" said Archer.
"Eef you talk you can't escape, what? Vy shall you talk, huh?"
Tom looked at Archer, who screwed up his freckled nose and gazed shrewdly at the Germans with a sagacious and highly satisfied look in his mischievous eye.
"That's the treaty, is it?" he said. "And that's just the kind of—shut up!" he interpolated, glancing sideways at Tom. "I'll do the talking—that's just the kind of stuff you'rre trying to put overr on President Wilson, too—tryin' to make the otherr fellerr think he's licked and then making believe you'rre willing to be generous. You got the nerrve (the R's fairly rolled and rumbled as he gathered momentum)—you got the nerrve to come herre with out any guns or sworrds and things and think you can scarre us. Do you know—shut up!" he shot at Tom by way of precaution. "Do you know wherre I think yourr sworrds and things arre? I think the English Tommies have got 'em. I know all about you fellerrs deserrting—I hearrd about it in prison. You'rre deserrting every day. Some of you arre even surrenderrin' to get a good squarre meal. Anddo you know what an English Tommy told me—you consarrned blufferr, you——"
He was in full swing now, his freckled nose all screwed up and rolling out his R's like artillery. Even sober Tom couldn't help smiling at the good old upstate adjective,consarrned.
"He told me a Hun is no good when he loses his gun or his sworrd. You don't think I'm a-scarred ofyou, do you? It's fifty-fifty—two against two, you pair of bloomin' kidnapperrs, and you won't tell 'cause you can't afford to! Same reason as we won't. But you can't put one overr on me any morre'n you can on President Wilson and if you'rre forr making treaties you got to get down off your high horrse—see? You ain't got a superiorrity of numbers now! You got nothing but fourr fists, same as we got. Forr two cents, I'd wash yourr face on those rocks! Treaties! I come from Corrnville Centre, I do, and——"
Tom laughed outright.
"You shut up!" said Archer. "You want to make a treaty, huh? All right, that'll be two Huns less forr the Allies to feed. We'll swap with you, all right, and I wish you luck. I don't know wherre you'rre going or what you'rre going to do and I don't carre a rotten apple. Only you ain't going todictate terrms tome. You'll take these crazy old rags and you'rre welcome to 'em, and we'll take yourr uniforms if that's what you want. Treaty!We'llmake a treaty with you! And we'll take the boat too, and if that don't satisfy you then that's the end of the what-d'-you-call it! You keep still!" he added, turning to Tom.
CHAPTER XXIVMILITARY ETIQUETTE
"What did you mean by thewhat-d'-you call it?" Tom asked, as they rowed through the darkness for the Baden shore.
"Arrmis-stice," said Archer, wrestling with the word.
"Oh," said Tom.
"That's the way to handle 'em," Archer said with undisguised satisfaction.
"I never saw you like that before," said Tom. "I had to laugh when you saidconsarn."
"That's the Huns all overr," said Archer, his vehemence not yet altogether abated. "They'll try to do the bossing even afterr they'rre licked. Treaties! They've got theirr firrst taste of aYankeetreaty, hey? Didn't even have a sworrd and wanted me to think they werre doin' us a favorr! President Wilson knows how to handle that bunch, all right, all right!—Don't row if you'rre tirred."
"It don't hurt my leg to row, only I see now I couldn't swim it."
"Think I didn't know that?" said Archer.
"I got to admit you did fine," said Tom.
"You got to get 'em down on theirr knees beforre you make a treaty with 'em," boasted Archer. "You can see yourself they'rre no good when they haven't got any commanderr—or any arrms. When Uncle Sam makes a treaty with that gang, crab-apples, but I hope he gets the boat, too."
"I know what you mean," said Tom soberly. "I have to laugh at the way you talk when you get mad. It reminds me of the country and Temple Camp."
"That's one thing I learned from knockin' around in Europe since this warr starrted," said Archer. "The botches, or whatever you call 'em, are no darrned good when you get 'em alone. The officers may be all right, but the soldierrs are thick. If I couldn't 'a' knocked the bluff out o' that lord-high critturr, I'd 'a' rubbed his pie face in the mud!"
Tom laughed at his homely expletives and Archer broke out laughing too, at his own expense. But for all that, Tom was destined to recall, and that very soon, what Archer had said about the Huns. And he was shortly to use this knowledge in one of the most hazardous experiences of his life.
They were now, thanks to their treaty, both dry clad in the field-gray uniforms of the German rank and file; and though they felt somewhat strange in these habiliments they enjoyed a feeling of security, especially in view of the populated district they must pass through.
Of the purposes and fate of their late "enemies" they had no inkling and they did not greatly concern themselves about this pair of fugitives who had crossed their path. They knew, from the gossip in "Slops" prison, that Germany was full of deserters who were continually being rounded up because, as Archer blithely put it, they were "punk scouts and had no resourrce—or whatever you call it." Tom did not altogether relish the implication that a deserter might be a good scout orvice versa, but he agreed with Archer that the pair they had encountered would probably not "get away with it."
"If they had a couple o' generrals to map it out forr 'em, maybe they would," said Archer.
"I think I'm above you in rank," said Tom, glancing at an arrow sewn on his sleeve.
"I'm hanged if I know what that means," Archer answered. "Therre's a couple morre of 'em on your collarr. Maybe you'rre a generral, hey? I'm just a plain, everyday botch."
"Boche," said Tom.
"Same thing."
They landed at an embankment where a railroad skirted the shore and it occurred to Tom now that the guiding light which had forsaken him the night before was a railroad signal which had been turned the other way after the passage of the train he had heard. At his suggestion, Archer bored a hole in the boat and together they gave it a smart push out into the river.
"Davy Jones forr you, you bloomin' tattletile, as the Tommies would say," Archer observed in reminiscence of his vast and varied acquaintanceship. "Come on now, we've got to join our regiment and blow up a few hospitals. How do you like being a botch, anyway?"
"I'd rather be one now than a year from now," said Tom.
"Thou neverr spakst a truerr worrd.
"Oh, Fritzie Hun, he had a gun,And other things that's worrse;He didn't like the foe to strike,So he shot a Red Cross nurrse,"
Archer rattled on.
"Can't you saynurse?" said Tom.
"Surre I can—nurrrrse."
Tom laughed.
They tramped up through the main street of a village, for the populated area was too extensive to afford hope of a reasonably short detour. The few people whom they passed in the darkness paid no particular heed to them. They might have been a couple of khaki-clad boys in America for all the curiosity they excited.
At the railroad station an army officer glared at them when they saluted and seemed on the point of accosting them, which gave them a momentary scare.
"We'd better be careful," said Tom.
"Gee, I thought we had to salute," Archer answered.
They followed the railroad tracks through an open sparsely populated region as far as the small town of Ottersweier. The few persons who were abroad paid no particular attention to them, and as long as no one spoke to them they felt safe, for the street was in almost total darkness. Once a formidable-looking German policeman scrutinized them, or so they thought, and a group of soldiers who were sitting in the dark entrance of a little beer garden looked at them curiously before saluting. Most of these men were crippled, and indeed as they passed alongit seemed to the fugitives that nearly every man they passed either had his arm in a sling or was using crutches.
"Do you think maybe they had a hunch we werren't Gerrman soldierrs at all?" Archer queried.
"No," said Tom. "I think they just didn't want to salute us till they were sure we were soldiers like themselves. I think a soldier hasn't got a right even to salute an officer here unless the officer takes some notice of him. Maybe the officer's got to glance at him first, or something."
"G-o-odnight!" said Archer. "Reminds you of America, don't it—not 'arf, as the Tommies say. Wouldn't it seem funny not daring to speak to an officerr therre? Many's the chat I've had with French generals and English ones, too. Didn't I give old Marshal What's-his-name an elastic band to put around his paperrs?"
In all probability he had, for he was an aggressive and brazen youngster without much respect for dignity and authority, and Tom was glad when they reached the hills, for he had been apprehensive lest his comrade might essay a familiar pleasantry with some grim official or launch himself into the perilous pastime of swapping souvenirs with a German soldier.
But they were both to remember this business about saluting which, if Tom was right, was eloquent of the German military system, showing how high was the officer and how low the soldier who might not even pay his arrogant superior the tribute of a salute without permission.
This knowledge was to serve Tom in good stead before many days should pass.
CHAPTER XXVTOM IN WONDERLAND
All through that night, with their compass as a guide, they climbed the hills, keeping in a southerly direction, but verging slightly eastward. In the morning they found themselves on the edge of a high, deeply wooded plateau, which they knew extended with more or less uniformity to the Swiss frontier.
Looking ahead of them, in a southerly direction, they could see dim, solemn aisles of sombre fir trees and the ground was like a brown velvet carpet, yielding gently under their feet. The air was laden with a pungent odor, accentuated by the recent storm, and the damp, resiny fragrance was like a bracing tonic to the fugitives, bidding them welcome to these silent, unfrequented depths.
They were now, indeed, within the precincts of the renowned Schwarzwald, whose wilderness toyland sends forth out of its sequestered hamlets (or did) wooden lions, tigers and rhinoceroses for thewhole world, and monkeys on sticks and jumping-jacks and little wooden villages, like the little wooden villages where they are made.
The west slopes of this romantic region were abrupt, almost like the Palisades of the Hudson, running close to the river in some places, and in other places descending several miles back from the shore, so that a panoramic view of southern Alsace was always obtainable from the sharp edge of this forest workshop of Santa Claus. In the east the plateau slopes away and peters out in the lowlands, so that, as one might say, the Black Forest forms a kind of huge natural springboard to afford one a good running jump across the Rhine into Alsace.
Archer's battered and misused geography had not lied about the commissary department of this storied wilderness, for the wild grapes (of which the famous Rhenish wine is made) did indeed grow in "furious what-d'you-call-'ems" or luxurious profusion if you prefer, upon the precipitous western slopes.
All that day they tramped southward, meeting not a soul, and feeling almost as if they were in a church. It seemed altogether grotesque that Germany, grim, fighting, war-crazy Germany, should own such a peaceful region as this.
In the course of the day, they helped the prohibition movement, as Archer said, by eating grapes in such quantities as seriously to reduce the output of Rhenish wine. "But, oh, Ebeneezerr!" he added. "What wouldn't I give for a good russet apple and a dipper of sweet cider."
"You're always thinking about apples and souvenirs," said Tom.
"You can bet I'm going to get a souveneerr in herre, all right!" Archer announced. "Therre ought to be lots of good ones herre, hey?"
"Maybe they grow in furious what-d'you-call-'ems?" suggested sober Tom.
"If it keeps as level as this, we ought to be able to waltz into the barrbed wirre by tomorrow night. This is the only thing about Gerrmany that's on the level, hey?"
Toward evening they had the lesser of the two surprises which were in store for them in the Black Forest. They were hiking along when suddenly Tom paused and listened intently.
"What is it?" Archer asked.
"A bird," said Tom, "but I never heard a bird make a noise like that before."
"He's chirrping in Gerrman," suggested Archer.
The more Tom listened, the more puzzled he became,for he had the scout's familiarity with bird voices and this was a new one to him.
"Therre's a house," Archer said.
And sure enough there, nestling among the firs some distance ahead, was the quaintest little house the boys had ever seen. It was almost like a toy house with a picturesque roof ten sizes too big for it, and a funny little man in a smock sitting in the doorway. Hanging outside was a large cuckoo clock and it was the wooden cuckoo which Tom had heard.
Shavings littered the ground about this tiny, wilderness manufactory, and upon a rough board, like a scout messboard, were a number of little handmade windmills revolving furiously. Wooden soldiers and stolid-looking horses with conventional tails, all fresh from the deft and cunning hands which wielded the harmless jack-knife, were piled helter-skelter in a big basket waiting, waiting, waiting, for the end of the war, to go forth in peace and goodwill to the ends of the earth and nestle snugly in the bottom of Christmas stockings.
This quaint old man could speak scarcely any English, but when the boys made out that he was Swiss, and apparently kindly disposed, they sprawled on the ground and rested, succeeding bydint of motions and a few words of German in establishing a kind of intercourse with him. He was apparently as far removed from the war as if he had lived in the Fiji Islands, and the fugitives felt quite as safe at his rustic abode as if they had been on the planet Mars. His nationality, too, gave them the cheering assurance that they were approaching the frontier.
"Vagons—noh," he said; "no mohr." Then he pointed to his brimming basket and said more which they could not understand.
Like most persons who live in the forest, he seemed neither surprised at their coming nor curious. They gathered that in former days wagons had wound through these forest ways gathering the handiwork of the people, but that they came no more. To Tom it seemed a pathetic thing that Kaiser Bill should reach out his bloody hand and blight the peaceful occupation of this quaint little old man of the forest. Perhaps he would die, far away there in his tree-embowered cottage, before the wagons ever came again, and the overflowing basket would rot away and the windmills blow themselves to pieces....
CHAPTER XXVIMAGIC
Leaving the home of the Swiss toymaker, who had shared his simple fare with them, they started southward through the deep wilderness.
Tom's idea was to keep well within the forest, but within access to its western edge, so that they might scan the country across the river at intervals. They were so refreshed and encouraged as they tramped through the deep, unpeopled wilderness which they knew must bring them to the border, and so eager to bring their long journey to an end, that they kept on for a while in the darkness until, to their great surprise, they came upon a sheet of water the bank of which extended as far east and west as they could see. Tom fancied he could just distinguish the dark trees outlined on the opposite shore.
"Let's follow the shore a ways and see if we can get round it," he said.
But a tramp along the edge, first east, then west, brought no general turn in the shore-line and theybegan to wonder if the Schwarzwald could be bisected by some majestic river.
"I don't think a river so high up would be so wide," Tom said. "If I was sure about that being the other shore over there, we could swim across."
"It would be betterr to get around if we could," said Archer, "because if we'rre goin' wherre people arre we don't want our uniforms all soaked."
"I'm not going to try to findher, if that's what you mean," said Tom; "not unless you say so too, anyway."
"What d'you s'pose I dived forr that glass forr?" Archer retorted. "We're goin' to find that girrl—or perish in the attempt—like old What's-his-name. You've got the right idea, Slady."
"It ain't an idea," said Tom soberly, "and if you think it's—kind of—that I—that I—like her——"
"Surre it ain't, it's 'cause you hate herr," said Archer readily.
"You make me tired," said Tom, flushing.
Since they had to sleep somewhere, they decided to bivouac on the shore of this water and take their bearings in the morning. As the night was warm, they took off their coats and hanging them to a spreading branch above them they sprawled upon the cushiony ground, abandoning for once their ruleof continuous watch, and were soon fast asleep. You do not need any sleeping powders in the Black Forest, for the soft magic of its resiny air will lull you to repose.
When they awakened in the morning they squirmed with complicated gymnastic yawns, and lay gazing in lazy half slumber into the branches above them. Suddenly Archer jumped to his feet.
"Wherre arre ourr coats?" he cried.
Tom sat up, rubbed his eyes and gazed about. There were no coats to be seen.
"What d'you know about that?" said Archer. "Maybe they blew away," he added, looking about.
"There hasn't been any wind," said Tom. "Look at that handkerchief." Near him lay a handkerchief which Archer remembered spreading on the ground beside him the night before.
"Well—I'll—be—jiggered," he exclaimed, looking about again in dismay. "Somebody's been herre," he added conclusively.
Tom fell to scrutinizing the ground for footprints, but there was no sign of any and he too gazed about him in bewilderment.
"They didn't walk away, that's sure," he said, "and they didn't blow away either. There wasn't even a breeze."
A thorough search of the immediate locality confirmed their feeling of certainty that the coats had not blown away. Indeed, they could not have blown far even if there had been any wind, for the closeness of the trees to one another would have prevented this. Tom gazed about, then looked at his companion, utterly dumfounded.
"Maybe they blew into the waterr," Archer suggested. But Tom only shook his head and pointed to the light handkerchief upon the ground. A mere breath would have carried that away.
They could only stand and stare at each other. Some one had evidently taken their coats away in the night.
"It's Gerrman efficiency, that's what it is," said Archer.
"Why didn't they take us, too?" Tom asked.
"They'll be along forr us pretty soon," Archer reassured him. "They'rre superrmen—that's what they arre.—Maybe it's some kind of strategy, hey? They can do spooky things, those Huns. They've got magic uniforms."
"I don't see any reason for it," said sober Tom, still looking about, unable to conquer his amazement.
"That's just it," said Archer. "They do things therre ain't any reason forr just to practice theirrefficiency. Pretty soon you'll see all the allied soldierrs'll be losing their coats. Go-o-o-o-dnight!"
"Well, I can't find any footprints, that's sure," said Tom, rather chagrined. "I usually can."
"Maybe it was some sort of an airship," Archer suggested.
Whatever the explanation of this extraordinary thing, the coats were gone. There were no footprints, and there had been no wind. And the mysterious affair left the boys aghast.
"One thing sure—we'd better get away from here quick," said Tom.
"You said it! Ebeneezerr, but this place has got the Catskills and old Rip Van Winkle beat! Come on—quick!"
Tom was not sure that one side of the water was any safer than the other in this emergency, and he was almost too nonplussed to do anything, but surely they were in danger, he felt, and would better be upon their way without the loss of a minute. What troubled him not a little also was that the precious spy-glass and the compass were with the missing coats.
They could see now that the water was a long, narrow lake the ends of which were just discernible from the midway position along the shore wherethey stood, and the opposite shore was perhaps a mile distant.
"Are you game to swim it?" Archer asked.
They felt that this would be easier than the long tramp around and that they would have the advantage while swimming of an extended view and would avoid any danger which might lurk behind the trees.
They had almost reached the opposite shore when Archer sputtered and called out to Tom: "Look, look!"
Tom looked and saw, hanging from a branch on the shore they were nearing, the two missing field gray uniform coats.
This was too much. Speechless with amazement they clambered ashore and walked half fearfully up to their fugitive garments. There was no doubt about it, there were the two coats dangling from a low hanging branch, perfectly dry and in the pockets the spy-glass and the trusty compass. The two boys stared blankly at each other.
"Well—what—do—you—know—about—that?" said Archer.
"They didn't steal anything, anyway," said Tom, half under his breath.
Archer stared at the coats, then peered cautiouslyabout among the trees. Then he faced Tom again, who returned his stare in mute astonishment.
"You don't s'pose we could have swum across in ourr sleep, do you?" said Archer.
Tom shook his head thoughtfully. Could it be that those Huns, those fiends of the air and the ocean depths, those demons who could shoot a gun for seventy miles and rear their yellow heads suddenly up out of the green waters close to the American shore—could it be that they were indeed genii—ghouls of evil, who played fast and loose with poor wanderers in the forest until the moment came for crushing them utterly?
Or could it be that this black wilderness, perched upon its mountain chain, was indeed the magic toyland of all creation, the home of Santa Claus and——
"Come on," said Archer, "let's not stand herre. B'lieveme, I want to get as far away from this place as we can!"
CHAPTER XXVIINONNENMATTWEIHER
But the worst was yet to come. They hurried now, for whatever the cause of this extraordinary incident, they wished to get away from it, and having crossed the lake they paused not to dry their garments but continued southward following the almost obliterated wagon tracks which ran from the shore.
"I wonder how the wagons got across?" said Tom.
"Wings," said Archer solemnly, shaking his head.
In a little while they came to the toymaker's cottage, with the mechanical cuckoo and the windmills and the basket of soldiers and animals and the old Swiss toymaker himself, sitting like a big toy, in the doorway.
"Well—I'll—be——" began Archer.
Tom simply gaped, too perplexed to speak. He had believed that he was something of a woodsman,and he certainly believed that he would not go north supposing that he was going south! Could there be another Swiss toymaker, and another cottage and another squawking cuckoo, exactly like the others? Were they all alike, the lonesome denizens of this spooky place, like the wooden inhabitants of a Noah's ark?
"This Hun forest has got Aladdin's cave beat twenty ways," said Archer. "Either we'rre crazy or this place is."
Suddenly the bright thought occurred to Tom to look at his compass. Unless the magnetic pole had changed its position, and the whole earth gone askew, they were tramping northward, as he saw to his unutterable amazement.
"Did we swim across the lake or didn't we?" he demanded of Archer, roused out of his wonted stolidness.
"Surre, we did!"
"Then I give it up," said Tom resignedly. "The compass says north—we're going north. This is the very same toymaker."
"Go-o-odnight!" said Archer, with even more than his usual vehemence. "Maybe the Gerrmans have conquerred the Norrth Pole and taken all the steel to make mountains, just like they knocked internationallaw all endways, hey? That's why the compass don't point right. G-o-o-o-o-odnight!"
This ingenious theory, involving a rather large piece of strategy even for "supermen," did not appeal to Tom's sober mind.
"That's what it is," said Archer. "You've got to admit that if they could send Zeps and submarines and things to the North Pole and cop all the steel, the British navy, and ourrs too, would be floppin' around the ocean like a chicken with its head cut off.—It's a good idea!"
Tom went up to the old toymaker, who greeted them with a smile, seeming no more surprised to see them than he had been the day before.
"North—north?" asked Tom, pointing.
"Nort—yah," said the old man, pointing too.
"Water," said Tom; "swim—swimacross" (he pointed southward and made the motions of swimming). The old man nodded as if he understood.
"Ach—vauder, yach,—Nonnenmattweiher."
"What?" said Tom.
"What?" said Archer.
"Nonnenmattweiher," said the old man. "Yah."
"He wants to know what's the matter with you," said Archer.
"Water," Tom repeated, almost in desperation.
"Swim (he went through the motions): Swim across water to south—start south, go north." He made no attempt to convey the incident of the vanishing coats.
"Water—yah,—Nonnenmattweiher," the man repeated.
At last, by dint of repeating words and swinging their arms and going through a variety of extraordinary motions, the boys succeeded in conveying to the little man that something was wrong in the neighborhood of the lake, and he appeared willing enough to go back with them, trotting along beside Tom in his funny belted blouse, for all the world like a mechanical toy. Tom had his misgivings as to whether they would really reach the lake no matter which way they went, but they did reach it, and standing under the tree where they had recovered their vanished coats they tried to explain to the old man what had happened—that they had crossed from the north to the south bank and continued southward, only to find that they were going north!
Suddenly a new light illumined the little man's countenance and he chuckled audibly. Then he pointed across the lake, chattering and chuckling the while, and went through a series of strange motions, spreading his legs farther and farther apart, pointingto the ground between them, and concluded this exhibition with a sweeping motion of his hands as if bidding some invisible presence of that enchanted place God-speed across the water.
"Och—goo," he said, and shook his head and laughed.
"I know what he means," said Tom at last, with undisguised chagrin, "and I'm a punk scout. I didn't notice anything at all. Come on. We've got to swim across again—that's south, all right."
"What is it?" asked Archer.
"I'll show you when we get there—come on."
The little Swiss toymaker stood watching them and laughing with a spasmodic laugh which he might have caught from his own wooden cuckoo. When they reached the other shore Tom fell at once to examining a very perceptible rift in the earth a few feet from the shore.
"Do you see?" he said, "we floated over on this piece of land. The tree where we hung our coats was on therealshore, and——"
"Go-od night, and it missed the boat," concluded Archer.
"This tree here is something like it," said Tom, "and that's where I made my mistake. I ought to have noticed the trees and I ought to have noticedthe crack. Gee, if my scout patrol ever heard of that! 'Specially Roy Blakeley," he added, shaking his head dubiously.
It was indeed something of a "bull" in scouting, though perhaps a more experienced forester than Tom would have become as confused as he in the same circumstances. Perhaps if he had been as companionable with his school geography as Archer had been with his he might have known about the famous Lake Nonnenmattweiher in the silent depths of the Schwarzwald and of its world-famed floating island, which makes its nocturnal cruises from shore to shore, a silent, restless voyager on that black pine-embowered lake.
As the boys looked back across the water they could see the little Swiss toymaker still standing upon the shore, and looking at him through the rescued glass (of which they were soon to make better use), Tom could see that his odd little figure was shaking with merriment—as if he were wound up.
CHAPTER XXVIIIAN INVESTMENT
Often, in the grim, bloody days to come, they thought of the little Swiss toymaker up there among his windmills and Noah's arks, and of his laugh at their expense. A merry little gnome he was, the very spirit of the Black Forest.
Their last sight of him marked almost the end of their wanderings. For another day's tramping through the solemn depths brought them to a little community, a tiny forest village, made up of just such cottages and people, and they made a detour to avoid it, only to run plunk into another miniature industrial centre which they also "side-stepped," though indeed the iron fist seemed not to be very tightly closed upon these primitive knights of the jack-knife and chisel; and they saw no dreaded sign of authority.
Still they did not wish to be reckless and when they sought food and shelter it was at a sequestered cottage several miles from the nearest habitation.Here Tom showed his button but the old man (they saw no young men) seemed not to know what it meant, although he gave them food, apparently believing them to be German soldiers.
Tom believed that they must have journeyed fifty or sixty miles southward, verging away from the river so as to keep within the depths of the forest, and he realized that the time had come for them to consider just what course they were going to pursue.
"If we're going to try to find her," he said rather hesitatingly, "we ought to hit it west so's we can take a pike across the river. But if we keep straight south we'll strike the river after it bends, if that old weaver knew what he was talking about, and when we cross it we'll be in Switzerland. We'll do whatever you say. Going straight south would be easier and safer," he added, with his usual blunt honesty; "and if we cross back into Alsace we'll have to go past houses and people and we'll be taking chances.—I admit it's like things in a book—I mean rescuing girls," he said, with his characteristic awkward frankness, "and maybe some people would say it was crazy, kind of——" What he meant wasromantic, but he didn't exactly know how to say that. "As long as we've been lucky so far maybe we ought to get across the frontier and over to France as quickas we can. I s'pose that's where we belong—most of all——"
"Is that what you think?" said Archer.
"I ain't sayin' what I think, but——"
"Well, then, I'll say whatIthink," retorted Archer. "You're always telling about thoughts you've had. I don't claim I'm as good as you arre at having thoughts, but if therre's a soldierr wounded they send two or three soldierrs to carry the stretcherr, don't they? Maybe those soldierrs ought to be fighting, but saving a person comes firrst. You've hearrd about giving all you have to the Red Cross. Allwegot is thechanceto get away. We've got morre chance than we had when we starrted, 'cause you'rre a good scout——"
"I don't claim——"
"Shut up," said Archer; "so it's like saving up ourr chances and adding to 'em, till now we're 'most in Switzerland and we got a good big chance saved up. I'll tell you what I'm going to do with mine—I'm going to give it to the Red Cross—kind of—as you'd say. If that girrl is worrkin' on that road and I can find herr, I'm goin' to. If I get pinched, all right. So it ain't a question of whatwe'rregoin' to do; it's a question of: Areyouwith me? You're always tellin' when yourr thoughts come to you.Well, I got that one just before I dived for the glass. So that's the way I'm going to investmychance, 'cause I haven't got anything else to give.... I heard in prison about the Liberty Bond buttons they give you to wearr back home. I'd like to have one of those blamed things to wearr for a souveneerr."
Tom Slade had stood silent throughout this harangue, and now he laughed a little awkwardly. "It's better than investing money," he said, "and what I'm laughing at—kind of," he added with infinite relief and satisfaction showing through the emotion he was trying to repress; "what I'm laughing at is how you're always thinking about souvenirs."
So it was decided that their little joint store, their savings, as one might say—their standing capital ofchancewhich they had improved and added to—should be invested in the hazardous business of rescuing a daughter of France from her German captors. It wasgivingwith a vengeance.
It is a pity that there was no button to signalize this kind of a contribution.