from between the stables just after they had passed, and exclaimed
in amazement: "You up here, _Scior Giacomo_? At this hour?" "Puff!"
murmured the lawyer, and Pedraglio began to blow, "Apff! Apff!" like a
pair of bellows. "Such paths as these take the breath away, my good
sir," said the old woman. They met no one else until they reached
Sostra.

Sostra, a stable about half-way up the mountain, with a barn, a shed,
and a cistern, lies some distance back from the path. That path is the
very worst in the whole of Valsolda. It would make even a wild goat hang
its tongue out. Pedraglio and the lawyer, panting and wet through with
perspiration, turned into the Sostra for a moment's rest. There all was
silence and solitude. At that height they already breathed a different
air. And how much lower the mountain-tops had become! And the lake down
there in the depths looked like a river! The lawyer cast anxious glances
upwards towards the first crest of the Boglia, where the great beech
forest begins. Only half an hour more of climbing! "Come along!" said
he. But Pedraglio, in whose legs there still lingered the memory of that
other long walk from Loveno to Oria by way of the Passo Stretto, wanted
to rest a little longer, and began calmly turning over the leaves of
Puttini's old manuscript. It was a monkish poem by some unknown
Cremonese of the seventeenth century. "Come along," his companion
repeated after a minute or two, and was already preparing to rise when
he heard some one approaching. He had barely time to whisper, "Look
out!" and turn his back that his face might not be seen. Pedraglio,
though he kept his manuscript close to his nose, saw first two
customs-guards and then two gendarmes appear upon the path. He warned
his friend of this in a low tone, and without turning his head. The two
guards halted. One of them saluted: "My respects, Signor Puttini."
Turning to the gendarmes, he said: "This gentleman is the first
political deputy of Albogasio." The gendarmes saluted also, and
Pedraglio raised his hat, and held the manuscript a little higher. The
guards wished to rest awhile, but one of the gendarmes ordered them to
move on, and when the rest of the company had started forward, he
himself approached the Sostra. He was from Ampezzo, and spoke Italian
very fluently. "You dog! I hope you don't know me!" thought Pedraglio,
vaguely conscious of his dual personality. "We are in for it, anyway!"

"_Signor Deputato Politico_,"