It was indeed something of a "bull" in scouting, though perhaps a more experienced forester than Tom would have become as confused as he in the same circumstances. Perhaps if he had been as companionable with his school geography as Archer had been with his he might have known about the famous Lake Nonnenmattweiher in the silent depths of the Schwarzwald and of its world-famed floating island, which makes its nocturnal cruises from shore to shore, a silent, restless voyager on that black pine-embowered lake. As the boys looked back across the water they could see the little Swiss toymaker still standing upon the shore, and looking at him through the rescued glass (of which they were soon to make better use), Tom could see that his odd little figure was shaking with merriment--as if he were wound up. CHAPTER XXVIII AN INVESTMENT Often, in the grim, bloody days to come, they thought of the little Swiss toymaker up there among his windmills and Noah's arks, and of his laugh at their expense. A merry little gnome he was, the very spirit of the Black Forest. Their last sight of him marked almost the end of their wanderings. For another day's tramping through the solemn depths brought them to a little community, a tiny forest village, made up of just such cottages and people, and they made a detour to avoid it, only to run plunk into another miniature industrial centre which they also "side-stepped," though indeed the iron fist seemed not to be very tightly closed upon these primitive knights of the jack-knife and chisel; and they saw no dreaded sign of authority. Still they did not wish to be reckless and when they sought food and shelter it was at a sequestered cottage several miles from the nearest habitation. Here Tom showed his button but the old man (they saw no young men) seemed not to know what it meant, although he gave them food, apparently believing them to be German soldiers. Tom believed that they must have journeyed fifty or sixty miles southward, verging away from the river so as to keep within the depths of the forest, and he realized that the time had come for them to consider just what course they were going to pursue.