.

"I see I'm the fool," he stammered; "I thought I shouldn't have started
across because maybe you couldn't swim so good and didn't want to admit
it."

"Me? I dived in Black Lake before you werre borrn," said Archer. This
was not quite true, since he was two years younger than Tom, but Tom
only smiled at him through glistening eyes.

"I see now I was crazy to think about finding her--anyway----"

"You haven't forrgot how she treated us, have you?" Archer retorted,
quoting Tom's own words. "It came to me all of a sudden, when I dropped
the glove, and that's when I called to you. And all of a sudden I
thought how you walked back toward the house with herr that night
and--and--do you think I don't understand--you darrned big chump?"

CHAPTER XXII

BREAKFAST WITHOUT FOOD CARDS

"Do you know what I think?" said Archer. "If Alsace used to belong to
France, then the Rhine must have been the boundary between France and
Gerrmany and we'rre right on that old frontierr now--hey? I'm a smarrt
lad, huh? They used to have watch towers and things 'cause I got kept in
school once forr sayin' a poem wrong about a fellerr that was in a watch
towerr on the Rhine. I bet this towerr had something to do with that old
frontierr and I bet it was connected with that castle overr on shorre,
too. Therre was a picture of a fellerr in a kind of an arrmorr looking
off the top of a towerr just like this--I remember 'cause I marrked him
up with a pencil so's he'd have a swallerr-tailed coat and a sunbonnet."

Archer's education was certainly helping him greatly.

"If we could once get overr therre into that Black Forest," he
continued, scanning the Baden shore and the heights beyond with the
rescued glass, "we'd be on easy street 'cause I remember gettin' licked
forr sayin', 'the abrupt west slopes of this romantic region are
something or otherr with wild vineyards that grow in furious
thing-um-bobs----'"

"_What?_" said Tom.

"_Anyway_, there's lots of grapes there," Archer concluded.

"If that's the way you said it I don't blame 'em for lickin' you," said
sober Tom. "I think by tonight I'll be able to swim it. There seems to
be some houses over there--that's one thing I don't like."

The Baden side, as well as they could make out through the haze, was
pretty thickly populated for a mile or two, but the lonesome mountains
arose beyond and once there, they would be safe, they felt sure.

They spent the day in the dilapidated