John Scott would not perhaps have slept so well in a hole in the snow if
he had not been inured to life in a trench, reeking in turn with mud,
slush, ice and water. His present quarters were a vast improvement, dry
and warm with the aid of the blankets, and he had crisp fresh air in
abundance to breathe. Hence in such a place in the Inn of the Hedge and
the Snow he slept longer than he had intended.

His will to awake at the rising of the sun was not sufficient. The
soothing influence of warmth and the first real physical relaxation that
he had enjoyed in three or four days overpowered his senses, and kept
him slumbering on peacefully long after the early silver of the rising
sun had turned to gold on the snow.

He had dug so deep a hole and he lay so close under the hedge that even
a vigilant scout looking for an enemy might have passed within a dozen
feet of him without seeing him. Another drift of snow falling after he
had gone to sleep had covered up his footsteps and he was as securely
hidden as if he had been a hundred miles, instead of only a scant two
miles, from the double French and German line.

No human being noticed his presence. A small brown bird, much like the
snowbird of his own land, hopped near, detected the human presence and
then hopped deliberately away. Nobody was in the snowy fields. They were
within range of the great German guns, and the peasants were gone. Had
John been willing to search longer he could easily have found an
abandoned house for shelter. As he had made mental notes before, Europe
was now full of abandoned houses. In some regions rents must be
extraordinarily low.