the road, with the idea of crossing the stream and
climbing the rugged cliff beyond, from which he could gain a nearer view
of the northern and ruined end of the castle.

But after an hour of careful progress, as he reached a projection of
rock which hung over the road below, he crouched, suddenly listening.
For he heard the sound of voices, a rumble of wheels, and the creaking
and clanking of heavy metallic objects. The sounds came nearer, swelling
in proportion, now clearly distinguishable; and so lying flat upon his
stomach, he parted the bushes at the edge of the rock and peered over.
There was a cloud of dust and the clatter of iron-shod boots against the
flints of the road, and in a moment he made out long ranks of soldiers,
marching rapidly to the northward into the Pass. Renwick knew that the
northern end of the Pass was already strongly guarded, for his host had
told him that many soldiers had gone through during the weeks before;
but the sight of these hurrying men, the shrouded guns which lumbered
amidst them, and the long line of motor trucks and wagons which
followed, gave Renwick a notion that events of military importance
were pending in the Galician plain beyond. He tried to form some
idea of the number of men that passed. A regiment--two, three,
four--artillery--three batteries at least. For an hour or more they
passed, and then at last, silence and solitude.

Although adequately disguised, Renwick was in no position to be stopped
and searched, for if he wore no marks of identification, his automatic,
and the money pinned in his trousers lining, would have made him an
object of suspicion, the more so in a country where soldiers were moving
in so precarious a military situation.

And so he descended slowly, hiding in a copse at the base of the rocks
where he waited for a while listening, and then peered cautiously out.
Then matching his footsteps to those of the soldiers, he crossed the
road obliquely and plunged through the bushes down over the rocks to the
bed of the Dukla, where he waited and listened again, crossing the
stream at last by a fallen tree and reaching the protection of the
undergrowth upon the farther bank.

Though he had been able to learn little in Budapest of the military
situation, even from Herr Koulos, the sight of Austrian soldiers
marching toward the northern end of the Pass assured him that the
Russians must have won important victories in Galicia, thus placing all
the passe