tache for a sooveneerr."

"There you go again," said Tom.

Now that the excitement was over, they realized how tired they were and
indeed the strain upon their nerves, added to their bodily fatigue, had
brought them almost to the point of exhaustion.

"I'm all in," said Archer wearily.

"All right, go to sleep," said Tom, "and after a while if you don't wake
up I'll wake you. One of us has got to stay awake and listen. We can't
afford to take any chances."

Archibald Archer needed no urging and in a minute he was sprawled upon
the straw, dead to the world. The daylight was glinting cheerily through
the interstices of tangled vine over the opening when he awoke with the
heedless yawns which he might have given in his own beloved Catskills.

"Don't make a noise," said Tom quickly, by way of caution. "We're in the
wine vat in Leteur's vineyard in Alsace, remember." It took Archer a
moment to realize where they were. They ate an early breakfast, finding
the simple odds and ends grateful enough, and then Tom took his turn at
a nap.

Throughout most of that day they sat with their knees drawn up, leaning
against the inside of the great vat, talking in hushed tones of their
plans. There was nothing else they could do in the half darkness and the
slow hours dragged themselves away monotonously. They had lowered the
door, but still left it open upon the merest crack and out of this one
or the other would peek at intervals, listening, heart in throat, for
the dreaded sound of footfalls. But no one came.

"I thought I hearrd a kind of rustling once," Archer said fearfully.

"There's a couple of cows 'way over in a field," said Tom; "they might
have made some sound."

After what seemed to them an age, the leaves over the opening seemed
bathed in a strange new light and glistened here and there.

"That crack faces the west," said Tom. "The sun's beginning to go down."

"How do you know?" asked Archer.

"I always knew that up at Temple Camp. I don't know _how_ I know. The
morning sun is different from the afternoon sun, that's all. I think
it'll set now in about two hours."

"I wonder when she'll come," Archer said.

"Not till it's good and dark, that's sure. She's got to be careful.
Maybe this place can be seen from the road, for all we know. Remember,
we didn't see it in the daylight."

"Sh-h-h," said Archer. "Listen."

From far, far away there was borne upon the still air a dull, spent,
booming sound at interv