conic utterance was the first intimation which Tom had that
anything special was brewing in the neighborhood, and he answered with
characteristic literalness, "All right, I will."

The road northward from Le Cardonnois was through a hilly country, where
there were few houses. About half a mile farther on he reached the
junction of another road which appeared also to lead northward, verging
slightly in an easterly direction. He had made so many turns that he was
a little puzzled as to which was the true north road, so he stopped and
took out the trusty little compass which he always carried, and held it
in the glare of his headlight, thinking to verify his course.
Undoubtedly the westward road was the one leading to his destination for
as he walked a little way along the other road he found that it bent
still more to the eastward and he believed that it must reach the French
front after another mile or two.

As he looked again at the cheap, tin-encased compass he smiled a little
ruefully, for it reminded him of Archibald Archer, with whom he had
escaped from the prison camp in Germany and made his perilous flight
through the Black Forest into Switzerland and to the American forces
near Toul.

Archibald Archer! Where, in all that war-scourged country, was Archibald
Archer now, Tom wondered. No doubt, chatting familiarly with generals
and field marshals somewhere, in blithe disregard of dignity and
authority; for he was a brazen youngster and an indefatigable souvenir
hunter.

So vivid were Tom's thoughts of Archer that, being off his machine, he
sat down by the roadside to eat the rations which his anxiety to reach
his destination had deterred him from eating before.

"That's just like him," he thought, holding the compass out so that it
caught the subdued rays of his dimmed headlight; "always marking things
up, or whittling his initials or looking for souvenirs."

The particular specimen of Archer's handiwork which opened this train of
reminiscence was part and parcel of the mischievous habit which
apparently had begun very early in his career, when he renovated the
habiliments of the heroes and statesmen in his school geography by
pencilling high hats and sunbonnets on their honored heads and giving
them flowing moustaches and frock coats.

In the prison camp from which they had escaped he had carved his
initials on fence and shack, but his masterpiece was the conversion of
the N on this same glassless compass i