To Tom's embarrassment she embraced him again, by way of showing that she was not altogether averse to bad boys. "That ain't the way it is at all," he said flashing awkwardly. "I want to save 'em both. That's the only thing I'm thinking about." "Ah," she laughed slyly, to Archer's delight. "You are a bad boy! Iss he not a bad boy? Yess?" She turned upon Archer. "Sixty years old I am, but still would I have so much happiness to be ze boy. See! Blondel and I, we run away to our marriage so many years ago. No one can catch us. So! Ziss is ze way--yess? Am I right?" She pointed her finger at poor Tom. "Ah, you are ze true knight! Even yet, maybe, you will fight ze duel--so! Listen! I will tell you how you will trrick ze Prussians." This was getting down to business and much to Tom's relief though Archer had enjoyed the little scene hugely. "See," she said more soberly. "I will tell you. Every young mam'selle must work--all are there. From north and south have they brought them. All! But not our older women. Like soldiers they must obey. Here to this very house come those that rebel--arrest! Some are sent back with--what you say? Reprimand. Some to prison. I cannot speak. My own countrywomen! Ug-gh! Zese wretches!" "So now I shall see if you are true Americans." She looked straight at Tom, and even her homely spectacles did not detract from the fire that burned in her eyes. Here was a woman, who if she had but been a man, could have done anything. "I shall give you ze paper--all print. Ze warrant. You see?" She paused, throwing her head back with such a fine air of defiance that even her wrinkled face and homely domestic garb could not dim its glory. "_You shall arrest Mam'selle!_ Here you shall bring her. See--listen! You know what our great Napoleon say? 'Across ze Alps lies Italee.' So shall you arrest Mam'selle!" She put her arm on Tom's shoulder and looked into his eyes with a kind of inspiring frenzy. "Close, so very close," she whispered significantly, "_across ze Rhine lies Switzerland_!" CHAPTER XXXI THE END OF THE TRAIL Not in all the far-flung battleline was there a more pitiable sight than the bright sun beheld as he poured his stifling rays down upon the winding line of upturned earth which lay in fresh piles across the country of southern Alsace. Almost to the Swiss border it ran, but no one could get across the Swiss border here without running into Prussian bayonets. To the east, where the Rhine flowed and where the mountains were, some reckless soul might manage it in a night's journeying, if he would brave the lonesome fastnesses; though even there the meshes of forbidding wire, charged with a death-giving voltage, stretched across the path. It was not an inviting route. [Illustration: "DON'T LOOK SURPRISED," TOM SAID IN AN UNDERTONE. Page 198]