"Of course I don't know for sure," Tom added, "but we've got to go by signs--just like Indian signs along a trail. If you pick up an old flint arrowhead you know you're on an Indian trail." "Christopherr _Columbus!_ But I'd like to find one of those arrowheads now!" said Archer. CHAPTER XVI THE WEAVER OF MERNON But for all these fine deductions, you are not to suppose that Tom and Archer approached the little house without trepidation. The nearer they came to it the less dependable seemed Tom's theory. "It might be all right in a story book," Archer said, backsliding into dismal apprehensions. But before he had a chance to lose his courage Tom had knocked softly on the door. They could hear a scuffling sound inside and then the door was opened cautiously by a little stooping old man with a pale, deeply wrinkled face, and long, straight white hair. From his ragged peasant's attire he must have been very poor and the primitive furnishings in the dimly lighted room, of which they caught a glimpse, confirmed this impression. But he had a pair of keen blue eyes which scrutinized the travellers rather tremulously, evidently supposing them to be German soldiers. "What have I done?" he asked fearfully in German. Tom wasted no time trying to understand him, but bringing forth his iron button he held it out silently. The effect was electrical; the old man clutched the button eagerly and poured forth a torrent of French as he dragged the boys one after the other into his poor abode and shut the door. "We're Americans," said Tom. "We can't understand." "It iss all ze same," said the man. "I will talk in ze American. How you came with ziss button--yess? Who have sent you?" To Tom's surprise he spoke English better than either Florette or her brother, and the boys were infinitely grateful and relieved to hear their own language spoken in this remote place. "We are Americans," said Tom. "We escaped from the prison camp across the Alsace border, and we're on our way to the frontier. I knew you were French on account of the fleur-de-lis on the end of your flagpole----" "And ze button--yess?" the old man urged, interrupting him. Tom told him the whole story of Frenchy and the Leteurs, and of how he had come by his little talisman. "I have fought in zat regiment," the old man said, "many years before you are born. I have seen Alsace lost--yess. If you were Germans I would _die_ before I would give you food. But I make you true welcome. I have been many years in America. Ah, I have surprise you." "What is this place?" Archer ventured to ask. "Ziss is Mernon--out of fifty-two men they take forty-one to ze trenches. My two sons, who are weavers too, they must go. Now they take the women and the young girls."