to see France get Alsace back just on account of him."

Florette sat gazing at him, her eyes brimming.

"And you come to Zhermany, how?"

"After we started back the ship I worked on got torpedoed and I was
picked up by a submarine. I never saw the inside of one before. So
that's how I got to Germany. They took me there and put me in the prison
camp at Slopsgotten--that ain't the way to say it, but----"

"You've got to sneeze it," interrupted Archer.

"Yes, I know," she urged eagerly, "and zen----"

"And then when I found out that it was just across the border from
Alsace I happened to think about having that button, and I thought if I
could escape maybe the French people would help me if I showed it to 'em
like Frenchy said."

"Oh, yess, _zey will_! But we must be careful," said Florette.

"It was funny how I met Archer there," said Tom. "We used to know each
other in New York. He had even more adventures than I did getting
there."

"And you escaped?"

"Yop."

"We put one over on 'em," said Archer. "It was his idea (indicating
Tom). They let us have some chemical stuff to fix the pump engine with
and we melted the barbed wire with it and made a place to crawl out
through. I got a piece of the barbed wirre for a sooveneerr. Maybe you'd
like to have it," Archer added, fumbling in his pockets.

Florette, smiling and crying all at once, still sat looking wonderingly
from one to the other of this adventurous, ragged pair.

"Those Germans ain't so smart," said Archer.

The girl only shook her head and explained to her parents. Then she
turned to Tom.

"My father wants to know if zey are all like you in America. Yess?"

"_He_ used to be a Boy Scout," said Archer. "Did you everr hearr of
them?"

But Florette only shook her head again and stared. Ever since the war
began she had lived under the shadow of the big prison camp. Many of her
friends and townspeople, Alsatians loyal still to France, were held
there among the growing horde of foreigners. Never had she heard of any
one escaping. If two American boys could melt the wires and walk out,
what would happen next?

And one of them had blithely announced that these mighty invincible
Prussians "couldn't even trail a mud turtle." She wondered what they
meant by "looping our trail."

CHAPTER IV

THE OLD WINE VAT

"We thought maybe you'd let us stay here tonight and tomorrow," said Tom
after the scanty meal which the depleted larder yielded, "an