lter with the waterproof
rugs, and the blue flame of the chafing-dish presently cheered us with
its glow. The wind bellowed along the precipices, the Reuss shouted in
its rocky bed, and once an express from Italy to the north passed high
above us, streaming its lights through the darkness like sparks from a
boy's squib. Yet those plutocratic travellers up in the _wagons lits_
were not having anything like the "good time" we enjoyed, warm in our
motor coats, sitting snug behind our rock, a lamp from the car
illuminating our little party and shining on Molly's piquant profile
as she brewed savoury messes in her magic cauldron. This was testing
thoroughly the resources of the automobile, which was playing the part
of travelling kitchen and larder as well as travelling chariot, and
could no doubt be made, with a little ingenuity, to play the parts
also of travelling bed and tent. Yet, as I said all this aloud to
Jack, my mind leaped forward to other nights which I should soon be
spending alone tinder the stars, and I thought tenderly of my
aluminium stove and tent, my sleeping-sack, and the other camping
tools I had bought in Bern.

From where we lay hid behind our rock to Airolo was only some
thirty-two miles, and the car ate up distance with so voracious an
appetite, that it was clear we should arrive in the little Italian
town in the dead waste and middle of the night. To travel a forbidden
road on an automobile, and then to knock up a snoring innkeeper at one
in the morning, to ask him where we could find a donkey, seemed to be
straining unduly the sense of humour; so after consultation we decided
that we should leave Airolo to its slumbers and speed down the Pass
into Italy until we ran to earth the object of our quest.

[Illustration: "THE BLUE FLAME OF THE CHAFING-DISH".]

Molly had produced excellent coffee; the smoke of our cigarettes
mingled its perfume with the night air. Our position had in it
something unique, for while we were "in the heart of one of nature's
most savage retreats" (as said a guide-book of my boyhood), we were at
the same time enjoying the refinements of civilisation, and I
suggested to Winston that our bivouac would form a fit subject for a
picture labelled, in the manner of some Dutch masters, "Automobilists
Reposing."

By the time Gotteland had packed up everything, and we were seated
once more in the car, it was nearly eleven o'clock at night. Coming
out from the shelter of our rock, s