In Secret by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
page 89 of 370 (24%)
page 89 of 370 (24%)
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mountain wall might have been plainer to me.
"As it was, I couldn't guess. There was no blasting--none that I could hear. But trains were running and some gigantic enterprise was being accomplished--some enterprise that apparently demanded speed and privacy--for not one civilian was to be seen, not one dwelling. But there were endless mazes of fortifications; and I saw guns being moved everywhere. "Well, I was becoming hungry up on that fir-clad battlement. I didn't know how to get down into the valley. It began to look as though I'd have to turn back; and that seemed a rather awful prospect. "Anyway, what happened, eventually, was this: I started east through the forest along that pathless tableland, and on the afternoon of the next day, tired out and almost starved, I stepped across the Swiss boundary line--a wide, rocky, cleared space crossing a mountain flank like a giant's road. "No guards were visible anywhere, no sentry-boxes, but, as I stood hesitating in the middle of the frontier--and just why I hesitated I don't know--I saw half a dozen jagers of a German mounted regiment ride up on the German side of the boundary. "For a second the idea occurred to me that they had ridden parallel to the ledge to intercept me; but the idea seemed absurd, granted even that they had seen me upon the ledge from below, which I never dreamed they had. So when they made me friendly gestures to come across the frontier I returned their cheery 'Gruss Gott!' and |
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