"Oh, don't mind me," Archer answered sarcastically. "_I_ don't count. I know one thing--_I'm_ going to head straight for the Swiss borderr. If crossing the river herre's the quickest way to do it, then that's what I'm going to do, you can bet!" For a moment Tom did not speak, then looking straight at Archer, he said,-- "You don't forget how she helped us, do you?" "I'm not saying anything about that," said Archer. "My duty's to Uncle Sam. You've got the _crazy_ notion now that you want to rescue a girrl, just like fellerrs do in story books. If you'rre going to be thinking about herr all the time I might as well go by myself. I could get along all right, if it comes to that." "Well, I couldn't," said Tom, with a note of earnestness in his voice. "Anyway, there's no use of our scrapping about it 'cause I don't suppose we'll find her. As long as we're going south through the mountains we might as well see if we can pick out Norne with the glass. Maybe we could even see that feller Blondel's house. The old man said the west slopes of the mountains were steep and that they run close to the river down there, so we ought to be able to pick out Norne with the glass. There isn't any harm in that, is there?" he added conciliatingly, "as long as we've got the glass?" Archer maintained a sullen silence. "I know we've got to think about Uncle Sam, and I know you're patriotic," said Tom generously, "and we can't afford to be taking big chances. But if you had known her brother, you'd feel the way I do--that's one sure thing." "I wouldn't run the risk of getting pinched and sent back to prison just on account of a girrl," said Archer scornfully. "_That's one sure thing_," he added, sulkily mimicking Tom's phrase. "That ain't the way it is," said Tom, flushing a little. "I ain't--if that's what you mean. Anyway, I admit we got to be careful, and I promise you if we can't spy out the house and the road with the glass I won't cross the river again till we get to the border." "First thing you know somebody'll come along if we keep on standing here," said Archer. "Here, you take one of these rubber gloves," said Tom. "Shut the glass and see if it'll go inside. I'll put the flashlight and the compass in the other one. It's going to rain, too. Here, let me do it," he added rather tactlessly, as he closed the little telescope and forced its smaller end down into the longest of the big glove fingers. "Twist the top of it and turn the edges over, see?" he added, doing it himself, "and it's watertight. I can make a watertight stopple for a bottle with a long strip of paper, but you got to know how to wind it," he added, with clumsy disregard of his companion's mood. Tom was a hopeless bungler in some ways. "Oh, surre, _you_ can do anything," said Archer. "Maybe it would be best if you held it in your teeth," said Tom thoughtfully; "unless you can swim with it in your hand."