Faugh!"

This was the first open statement the boys had heard as to the new
roads, all of which converged suspiciously in the direction of the Swiss
frontier. They were for bringing home German wounded; they were to
facilitate internal communication; they were for this, that and the
other useful and innocent purpose, but they all ran toward the Swiss
border or to some highway which ran thither.

"Ziss is ze last card they have to play--to stab little Switzerland in
ze back and break through," the old man said. "In ze south runs a road
from ze trench line across to ze Rhine. Near zere I have an old
comrade--Blondel. Togezzer we fight side by side, like brothers. When ze
boat comes, many times he comes to see me. Ze last time he come he tell
me how ze new road goes past his house--all women and young girls
working. It comes from ziss other road zat goes from ze trenches over to
ze Rhine. South it goes--you see?" he added shrewdly. "So now if you are
so clevaire to see a fleur-de-lis where none is intentioned, so zen you
can tell, maybe, why will zey build a road zat goes south?"

Tom, fascinated by the old man's sagacity and vehemence, only shook his
head.

"Ah, you are not so clevaire to suspect! Ziss is Amerique! Nevaire will
she suspect."

Tom did not altogether like this reference to Uncle Sam's gullibility,
but he contented himself with believing that it was meant as a thing of
the past.

"They can't flim-flam us now," Archer ventured.

"Flam-flim--no," the old man said, with great fervor.

"Maybe that's where they took my friend's sister and his mother," Tom
said.

"I will tell you vere zey take them," the old man interrupted. "You know
Alsace--no? So! See! I tell you." He approached, poking Tom's chest with
his bony finger and screwing up his blue eyes until he seemed a very
demon of shrewdness. They wondered if he were altogether sane.

"Nuzzing can zey hide from Melotte," he went on. "Far south, near Basel,
zere lives my comrade--Blondel. To him must you show your button--yess.
In Norne he lives."

"We'll write that down," said Tom.

"Nuzzing you write down," the old man said sharply, clutching Tom's arm.
"In your brain where you are so clevaire--zere you write it. So! You are
not so clevaire as Melotte. Now I will show you how you shall find
Mam'selle," he went on with a sly wink.

Emptying some wool out of a paper bag, he pressed the wrinkles from the
bag with his trembling old hand and bendin