"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 submarine that picked me up that time." They were both now clad in the semi-military blouses worn by the German "sausage men" and felt that to a casual observer at least they were disguised. It gave them a feeling of security even in these unfrequented highlands. And their little store of food refreshed their spirits and gave them new hope. What cheered Tom most of all was his precious possession, the rubber gloves, a detail of equipment which every gas-engine mechanic is pretty sure to have, though, he regarded the discovery as a rare find. He was thankful to have found them, for the terrific deadly current which he knew rushed through the formidable wire entanglement along the frontier had haunted him and baffled his wits. It was characteristic of Tom to think and plan far ahead. All the next day they journeyed through the hills, making a long detour to avoid a hamlet, and meeting no one. And at night, under the close-knit shelter of a great pine tree, they rested their weary bodies and ate the last of their meat and biscuits. When Tom roused Archer in the morning it was to show him a surprising view. From their wooded height they could look down across a vast tract of open country which extended eastward as far as they could see, running north and south between steep banks. Converging toward it out of the hills they had followed, they could see a bird's-eye panorama of the broadening streams, the trickling beginnings of which they had forded and drunk from, and their eyes followed the majestic water southward until it wound away among the frowning heights which they had all but entered. "It's the Rhine," said Archer, "and that's the real Black Forest where it goes. Those mountains are in Baden; now I know."