is scattered senses. Evidently, he was alone in this dank
place, for there was no sign of occupancy nor any sound but the light
patter of rain without, for the storm had spent its fury and subsided
into a steady drizzle.

He dragged himself to his feet, and though his knee was stiff he was
glad to discover that he was not incapable of walking. He believed he
was not feverish now and that his headache was caused by shock and
bruising rather than by illness. Perhaps, he thought, he was not so
badly off after all. Except for Archer....

Limping to the doorway he peered cautiously out. The sky was dull and
hazy and a steady, drizzling rain fell. There is something about a
drear, rainy day which "gets" one, if he has but a makeshift shelter;
and this bleak, gray morning carried poor Tom's mind back with a rush to
rainy days at his beloved Temple Camp when scouts were wont to gather in
tent and cabin for yarns.

He now saw that he was on a little rocky islet in the middle of the
river and that the structure which had sheltered him was a small tower,
very much like a lighthouse except that it was not surmounted by a
light, having instead that rough turret coping familiar in medieval
architecture. Far off, through the haze, he could distinguish, close to
the shore, a gray castle with turrets, which from his compass he knew to
be on the Baden side. He thought he could make out a road close to the
shore, and other houses, and he wished that he had the spy-glass so that
he might study this locality which he hoped to pass through.

Of course, he no longer cherished any hope of finding Florette Leteur;
Archer's chiding words still lingered in his mind, and, moreover,
without the glass he could do nothing for he certainly would never have
thought of entering Norne without first "piking" it from a safe vantage
point.

There was nothing to do now but nurse his swollen knee and rest, in the
hope that by night he would be able to swim to the Baden shore and get
into the hills. Never before had he so longed for the forest.

"If it wasn't for--for him being lost," he told himself, as he limped
back into the tower, "I wouldn't be so bad off. There's nobody lives
here, that's sure. Maybe fishermen come here, but nobody'll come today,
I'll bet."

After all, luck had not been unqualifiedly against him, he thought. Here
he was in an isolated spot in the wide river. What was the purpose of
this little tower on its pile of rocks he could