r the dim, wavering lines on the horizon at daytime; things near or far
or roundabout. His brow was high, his nose large and bridged; a face of
more angles than contours, bristling with gray spikes, like one who has
gone unshaven several days. His hands, folded over the round, polished
knuckle of his staff, were tanned and soiled, but they were long and
slender, and the callouses were pink, a certain indication that they
were fresh.

The afternoon glow of the September sun burned along the dusty white
highway. From where he stood the road trailed off miles behind and wound
up five hundred feet or more above him to the ancient city of Dreiberg.
It was not a steep road, but a long and weary one, a steady, enervating,
unbroken climb. To the left the mighty cliff reared its granite side to
the hanging city, broke in a wide plain, and then went on up several
thousand feet to the ledges of dragon-green ice and snow. To the right
sparkled and flashed a wild mountain stream on its way to the broad,
fertile valley, which, mistily green and brown and yellow with vineyards
and hops and corn, spread out and on to the north, stopping abruptly at
the base of the more formidable chain of mountains.

Across this lofty jumble of barren rock and glacial cleft, now purpling
and darkening as the sun mellowed in its decline, lay the kingdom of
Jugendheit; and toward this the wayfarer gazed meditatively, absorbing
little or nothing of the exquisite panorama. By and by his gaze wavered,
and that particular patch in the valley, brown from the beating of many
iron-shod horses, caught and chained his interest for a space. It was
the military field, and it glittered and scintillated as squadron after
squadron of cavalry dashed from side to side or wheeled in bewildering
circles.

"The philosophy of war is to prepare for it," mused the old man, with a
jerk of his shoulders. "France! So the mutter runs. There is a Napoleon
in France, but no Bonaparte. Clatter-clatter! Bang-bang!" He laughed
ironically and cautiously glanced at his watch, an article which must
have cost him many and many a potato-patch. He pulled his hat over his
eyes, scratched the irritating stubble on his chin, and stepped forward.

He had followed yonder goose-girl ever since the incline began. Oft the
little wooden shoes had lagged, but here they were, still a hundred
yards or more ahead of him. He had never been close enough to
distinguish her features. The galloping of sol