"How'd you make out in the riverr?" Archer asked.
"You can't even say river," said Tom, laughing foolishly in his great relief.
"It was some storrm, all right! But I got the matches safe anyway, and they'll strike, 'cause I tried one."
"You ought to have made a whisk stick[A] to try it," said Tom, then caught himself up suddenly. "But I ain't going to tell you what you ought to do any more. I'm goin' to stop bossin'."
[A] A stick the end of which is separated into fine shavings which readily catch the smallest flame, a familiar device used by scouts.
"I got yourr spy-glass forr you," said Archer. "I had to dive f'rr't. Didn't you hearr me call to you it was lost and I was goin' down f'rr't?"
"——lost——down——"
The tragic words flitted again through Tom's mind, and he reached out and took Archer's hand hesitatingly as if ashamed of the feeling it implied.
"What'd you do that for? You were a fool," he said.
"What you got to do, you do," said Archer; "that's what you'rre always sayin'. Didn't you say you wanted it so's you could see that fellerr Blondel's house from the mountains? Therre it is," he said, nodding toward an old ring-net that stood near, "and it's some souveneerr too, 'cause it's been at the bottom of the old Rhine."