"Well," he went on, "the rest, as I say, is pure surmise. This is my
conclusion: I think that for the last forty years the Huns have been
busy with an astounding military enterprise. Of course, since 1870,
the Boche has expected war, and has been feverishly preparing for
it. All the world now knows what they have done--not everything that
they have done, however.

"My conclusion is this: that, when Mount Terrible shrugged me off
its northern flank, the snow slide carried me to an almost
inaccessible spot of which even the Swiss hunters knew nothing. Or,
if they did, they considered it impossible to reach from their own
territory.

"From Germany it could be reached, but it was Swiss territory. At
any rate I think I am the only civilian who has been there, and who
has viewed from there this enormous work in which the Huns are
engaged.

"And I belive that this mysterious, overwhelmingly enormous work is
nothing less than the piercing--not of a mountain or a group of
mountains--but of that entire part of Switzerland which lies between
Germany and France.

"I believe that a vast military road, deep, deep, under the earth,
is being carried by an enormous tunnel from far back on the German
side of the frontier, under Mount Terrible, under all the mountains,
hills, valleys, forests, rivers--under Switzerland, in fact--into
French territory.

"I believe it has been building since 1871. I believe it is nearly