THE CLOUDS GATHER
"We never thought about asking him to translate that letterr," said
Archer.
"I'm not thinking about that letter," Tom answered. "All I'm thinking
about now is what he said about that new road. I'm not even thinking
about their going through Switzerland, either," he added with great
candor. "I'm thinking about Frenchy's sister. If they've got her working
there I'm going to rescue her. I made up my mind to that."
"_Some job!_" commented Archer.
"It don't make any difference how much of a job it is," said Tom, with
that set look about his mouth that Archer was coming to know and
respect.
They were clambering up the hillside again, for not all old Melotte's
hospitable urging could induce Tom to remain in the hut until daylight.
He would have liked to take along the rough sketch which the old man
had made, but this Melotte had strenuously opposed, saying that no maps
should be carried by strangers in Germany. So Tom had to content himself
with the old man's rather rambling directions.
Several things remained indelibly impressed on his mind. Old Melotte had
told him that upon the western bank of the Rhine about fifteen miles
above the Swiss border was an old gray castle with three turrets, and
that directly opposite this and not far from the Alsatian bank was the
little village of Norne.
"The way I make it out," said Archer, "is that this Blondel, whoeverr he
is, has got some Gerrman officerr wished on him and that geezerr has
charrge of the women worrking on the new road. I'd like to know how you
expect to get within a mile of those people in the daytime."
"We got plenty of time to think it out," Tom answered doggedly, "'cause
we'll be in the woods a couple of days and nights and that's where
thoughts come to you."
"We'd be big fools, afterr gettin' all the way down to the frontierr to
cross the riverr and go huntin' forr a road in broad daylight," said
Archer; "we'd only get caught."
"Well, we'll get caught then," retorted Tom.
"Anyway, I think the old fellow's half crazy," Archer persisted. "He's
got roads on the brain. He jumps all around from Norrne to Passaic
and----"
"He gave us something to eat," said Tom curtly.
"Well, I didn't say he didn't, did I?" Archer snapped. "If we'd had any
sense, we'd have stayed therre all night like he wanted us to. Therre
wouldn't have been any dangerr in that old shack, a hundred miles from
nowherre."
"We're safest in the hills," said Tom.
"It's going to rain, too," Archer grumbled.
Tom made no answer and they scrambled in silence up the uninviting
hillside, till old Melotte's shack could be seen far below with the dim
light in its windows.
"You'rre so particularr about not bein' caught," Archer began again,
"it's a wonder you wouldn't think morre about that when we get down
close to the borrderr. If I've got to be caught at all I'd ratherr be
caught now."
They had regained the height above the little hamlet and to the south
they could see the clustering lights of Strassbourg and here and there a
moving light upon the river.
"We've got to cross that, too, I s'pose," Archer said sulkily.
Tom did not answer. The plain fact was that they were both thoroughly
tired out, with that dog-tiredness which comes suddenly as a reaction
after days of nerve-racking apprehension and hard physical effort. For
the first two days their nervous excitement had kept them up. But now
they were fagged and the tempting invitation to remain at the hovel had
been too strong for Archer. Moreover, this new scheme of Tom's to divert
their course in a hazardous quest for Florette Leteur was not at all to
his liking. But mostly he was tired and everything looks worse when one
is tired.
"We're not going to keep on hiking it tonight, are we?" he demanded.
"You said yourself that the old man was kind of--a little off, like,"
Tom answered patiently. "He's got the bug that he's very shrewd and that
he can always get the best of the Germans. Do you think I'd take a
chance staying there? We took a chance as it was."
"Yes, and you'rre going to take a biggerr one if you go chasing all over
Gerrmany after that girrl. You won't find herr. That was a lot of
rattlebrain talk anyway--we're _so clevaire_!"
"There's no use making fun of him," said Tom; "he helped us."
"We'll get caught, that'll be the end of it," said Archer sullenly. Tom
did not answer.
"You seem to be the boss of everything, anyway."
They scrambled diagonally down the eastern slope of the high ground,
heading always toward the river and after an hour's travelling came out
upon its shore.
"Here's where we'll have to cross if we're going to cross at all," said
Tom. "What do you say?"
"_I_ haven't got anything to say," said Archer; "_you're_ doin' all the
saying."
"If we go any farther south," Tom went on patiently, "we'll be too near
Strassbourg and we're likely to meet boats. Listen."
From across the river came the spent whistle of a locomotive accompanied
by the rattling of a hurrying train, the steady sound, thin and clear in
the still night, mingling with its own echoes. A few lights, widely
separated, were visible across the water and one, high up, reassured Tom
that the mountains, the foothills of which they had followed, continued
at no great distance from the opposite shore.
There were welcoming fastnesses over there, he knew, and a dim, wide
belt of forest extending southward. There, safe from the haunts of men,
or at least with timely warning of any hamlets nestling in those sombre
depths, he and his comrade might press southward toward that promised
land, the Swiss border.
Yet, strangely enough (for one side of a river is pretty much like the
other) Tom felt a certain regret at the thought of leaving Alsace.
Perhaps his memory of the Leteurs had something to do with this. Perhaps
he had just the boyish feeling that it would change their luck. And he
knew that over there he would be truly in the enemy's country, with the
magic of his little talisman vanished in air.
Yet right here he must decide between open roads and stealthy
hospitality and that silent, embracing hospitality which the lonesome
heights would offer. And he decided in favor of the lonesome heights.
Perhaps after all it was not the enemy's country, though the names of
Baden and Schwarzwald certainly had a hostile sound.
But the rugged mountains and dim woods are never enemies of the scout,
and perhaps Tom Slade of Temple Camp felt that even the Schwarzwald,
which is the Black Forest, would forget its allegiance to whisper its
secrets in his ear.