ntry were the very things needed
in an observation balloon. One unpleasant task Tom had to perform, and
that was to remove the blouse from the hanging German and don it
himself, which he did, not without some shuddering hesitation.

"It's the only thing," he said, "that would make anybody think
somebody's been here, and that's just what we've got to look out for.
The other things won't be missed, but if anybody should come here and
see him hanging there without his coat they'd wonder where it was."

However, this was a remote danger, since probably no one knew of the
disaster.

Tom's chief difficulty was in restricting that indefatigable souvenir
hunter, Archer, from loading himself down with every conceivable kind of
useless but interesting paraphernalia.

"You're just like a tenderfoot when he starts out camping," said Tom.
"He takes fancy cushions and a lot of stuff; he'd take a brass bed and a
rolltop desk and a couple of pianos if you'd let him," he added, with
rather more humor than he usually showed. "All we're going to take is
the biscuits and two cans of meat and the flashlight and the field
glass and the bottle, and, let's see----"

"I don't have to leave this dandy ivory cigar-holderr, do I?" Archer
interrupted. "We could use it for----"

"Yes, you do, and we're going to leave that cartridge belt, too, so
chuck it," ordered Tom. "If anybody _should_ come up here we don't want
'em to think somebody else was here before 'em. All we're going to take
is just what I said--some of the eats, and the flashlight and the field
glass and the bottle and the rubber gloves and the pliers and--that's
all."

"Not even this dial-faced thing?" pleaded Archer.

"That's a gas gauge or something," said Tom. "Come on now, let's get
away from here."

Archer pointed the flashlight and cast a lingering farewell gaze upon a
large megaphone. For a brief moment he had wild thoughts of trying to
persuade Tom that this would prove a blessing as a hat, shedding the
pelting Alsatian rains like a church steeple. But he did not quite
dare.

CHAPTER XIV

A RISKY DECISION

"Did you notice that Victrola?" Archer asked fondly.

"Yes, it was busted; did you want that, too?"

"We might have used the arm for a chimney if we were building a fire,"
Archer ventured.

"We'd look nice crawling through these mountains with a Victrola in our
arms. The Fritzies always have a lot of that kind of junk with 'em. They
had one on the