They strolled on, following the trail, and neither spoke for a few minutes.
"In the end you don't get misjudged," said Tom simply, "because if you get on the right trail it'll bring you to the right place. If you've got the right on your side, you got to win."
"And that's why we'll win the war," she said.
"A feller that maybe got drowned told me about a little girl in London that got blown up while she was studying her lessons. And when I heard that I knew we'd win."
"Uncle Sam's like you, Tom," she laughed. "When he makes up his mind to do a thing.... Do you remember how you told me you had a good muscle? Uncle Sam's got a good muscle, don't you think?"
"I was thinking something like that when I looked at Roscoe to-night," he said. "We got to trust to Uncle Sam."
"The whole world is trusting to Uncle Sam now."
"He's got the muscle," said Tom.
"Yes."
The trail led through a fragrant avenue of evergreens now, through a solitude where Tom had often hiked, and presently they turned into the path which formed the short cut to the girl's home. Across the river, on the top of the bank building, they could see the Stars and Stripes waving in the small field of brightness thrown by the searchlight. And all else was darkness.