"Anyway, you stood by me and it ain't your fault," Tom muttered disconsolately. He turned the handle bar this way and that, so that _Uncle Sam's_ one big eye peered uncannily across the flooded stream and flickered up the road upon the other side, which wound up the hillside and away into the country beyond. The big, peering eye seemed to look longingly upon that road. Then Tom was seized with a kind of frantic rebellion against fate--the same futile passion which causes a convict to wrench madly at the bars of his cell. The glimpse of that illuminated stretch of road across the flooded stream drove him to distraction. Baffled, powerless, his wonted stolidness left him, and he cast his eyes here and there with a sort of challenge born of despair and desperation. Slowly, gently, the hazy dawn stole over the sky and the roof of dried and ragged shingles seemed as if it were covered with gray dust. Presently the light would flicker upon those black, mad waters and laugh at Tom from the other side. And meanwhile the minutes passed. He believed that he could swim the torrent and make a landing even though the rush of water carried him somewhat downstream. But what about _Uncle Sam_? He turned off the searchlight and still _Uncle Sam_ was clearly visible now, standing, waiting. He could count the spokes in the wheels. The spokes in the wheels--_the spokes_. With a sudden inspiration born of despair, Tom looked at that low, shingled roof. He could see it fairly well now. The gray dawn had almost caught up with him. And meanwhile the minutes passed! In a frantic burst of energy he took a running jump, caught the edge of the roof and swung himself upon it. In the thin haze his form was outlined there, his shock of light hair jerking this way and that, as he tore off one shingle after another, and threw them to the ground. He was racing now, as he had not raced before, and there was upon his square, homely face that look of uncompromising resolution which the soldier wears as he goes over the top with his bayonet fixed. Leaping to the ground again he gathered up some half a dozen shingles, selecting them with as much care as his desperate haste would permit. Then he hurriedly opened the leather tool case on his machine and tumbled the contents about until he found the roll of insulated wire which he always carried.