"Do you know what I think?" he said simply. "I think it was just the way I said--and like she said. They came to get her and maybe they didn't treat her just right, and her father hit one of them. Or maybe he shot him first off. Anyway, I think that soldier suit must be the one Frenchy had to wear, 'cause he told me that the boys in Alsace had to drill even before they got out of school. I guess she was going to bring it to us so one of us could wear it.... We got to feel sorry for her, that's one sure thing." It was Tom's simple, blunt way of expressing the sympathy which surged up in his heart. "I liked her; she treated us fine," said Archer. For a few seconds Tom did not answer; then he said in his old stolid way, "I don't know where they took her or what they'll make her do, but anybody could see she didn't have any muscle. Whenever I think of her I'll fight harder, that's one sure thing." For a few moments he could hardly command himself as he contemplated this tragic end of the broken home. Florette, whom he had seen but yesterday, had been taken away--away from her home, probably from her beloved Alsace, to enforced labor for the Teuton tyrant. He recalled her slender form as she hurried through the darkness ahead of them, her gentle apology for their poor reception, her wistful memories of her brother as she showed them their hiding-place, her touching grief and apprehension as she stood talking with him under the trellis.... And now she was gone and awful thoughts of her peril and suffering welled up in Tom's mind. He looked at the stark figure and white, staring face of old Pierre and thought of the impetuous embrace the old man had given him. He thought of his friend, Frenchy. And the mother--where was she? Good people, kind people; trying in the menacing shadow of the detestable Teuton beast to keep their flickering home fire burning. And this was the end of it. Most of all, he thought of Florette and her wistful, fearful look haunted him. "_Maybe for ze great Krupps_"--the phrase lingered in his mind and he stood there appalled at the realization of this awful, unexplained thing which had happened. Then Tom Slade did something which his scout training had taught him to do, while Archer, tremulous and unstrung, stood awkwardly by, watching. He knelt down over the lifeless form of the old man and straightened the prostrate figure so that it lay becomingly and decently upon the hard floor. He bent the one arm and laid it across the breast in the usual posture of dignity and peace. He took the threadbare covering from the old melodeon and placed it over the face. So that the last service for old Pierre Leteur was performed by an American boy; and at least the ashes of the home fire were left in order by a scout from far across the seas. "It's part of first aid," explained Tom quietly, as he rose; "I learned how at Temple Camp." Archer said nothing. "When a scout from Maryland died up there, I saw how they did it."