"Well, we'll get caught then," retorted Tom.
"Anyway, I think the old fellow's half crazy," Archer persisted. "He's got roads on the brain. He jumps all around from Norrne to Passaic and——"
"He gave us something to eat," said Tom curtly.
"Well, I didn't say he didn't, did I?" Archer snapped. "If we'd had any sense, we'd have stayed therre all night like he wanted us to. Therre wouldn't have been any dangerr in that old shack, a hundred miles from nowherre."
"We're safest in the hills," said Tom.
"It's going to rain, too," Archer grumbled.
Tom made no answer and they scrambled in silence up the uninviting hillside, till old Melotte's shack could be seen far below with the dim light in its windows.
"You'rre so particularr about not bein' caught," Archer began again, "it's a wonder you wouldn't think morre about that when we get down close to the borrderr. If I've got to be caught at all I'd ratherr be caught now."
They had regained the height above the little hamlet and to the south they could see the clustering lights of Strassbourg and here and there a moving light upon the river.
"We've got to cross that, too, I s'pose," Archer said sulkily.