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 into a very presentable S (though turned sideways) and the S into a very presentable N. The occasion of his doing this was a singular experience the two boys had had in their flight through Germany when, after being carried across a lake on a floating island while asleep, they had swum back and retraced their steps northward supposing that they were still going south. "Either we're wrong or the compass is wrong, Slady," the bewildered Archer had said, and he had forthwith altered the compass points before they discovered the explanation of their singular experience. After reaching the American forces Archer had gone forth to more adventures and new glories in the transportation department, the line of his activities being between Paris and the coast, and Tom had seen him no more. He had given the compass to Tom as a "souvenir," and Tom, whose sober nature had found much entertainment in Archer's sprightliness, had cherished it as such. It was useful sometimes, too, though he had to be careful always to remember that it was the "wrong way round." "He'll turn up like a bad penny some day," he thought now, smiling a little. "He said he'd bring me the clock from a Paris cathedral for a souvenir, and he'd change the twelve to twenty-two on it." He remembered that he had asked Archer _what_ cathedral in Paris, and Archer had answered, "The Cathedral de la Plaster of Paris." "He's a sketch," thought Tom. CHAPTER FOUR THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES "That's the way it is," thought Tom, "you get to know fellers and like 'em, and then you get separated and you don't see 'em any more."