“They are fighting terribly over there, it seems,--at some place called Liége. But we do not hear very much since the diligence stopped. And all our visitors went away at once. We were quite full and not one has come since. War is bad for everybody. For me, I cannot understand what people want to fight for. It will not come into Switzerland, do you think, monsieur?” “I shouldn’t think so, but when war once starts you never know where it will stop. And I’ve no doubt Germany would be only too glad to get hold of Switzerland if she got half a chance.” “Ach--those Germans! No, I do not like them. Whenever I see one come in here I say to myself, ‘Another trouble-maker!’ They are never satisfied, and they want everything--except to pay proper prices. No, I do not like them. If they all get killed in the fighting I shall not care one bit.” Their leave-taking could hardly have been warmer if Madame had been jingling in her hand a whole month’s pension fees instead of the price of a modest bottle of Asti, and presently they were slowly and steadily climbing the steep and stony path to Firnegarten. The maid in charge there was sister to one of those down below, and she also remembered Ray. She was much astonished at their intention of stopping the night there, and laughed merrily when Ray proceeded to hammer her price down to his level and then explained why he was, for once, acting like a German. She made them very comfortable, however, in a simple way, and obviously enjoyed their company. They went early to bed, and were well on their way up the Fiescher Alp soon after seven next morning. It was close on noon before they struggled up the tumbled débris of the top, and sank down on a flat rock, with that great glory of the Aletsch glacier sweeping down in front of them, from the great snow-basins of Jungfrau and Finsteraarhorn, till it curled out of sight behind the green ridges of Rieder-Alp away down below them on the left. “The Chariots of the Lord!” came involuntarily to Lois’s lips as she sat gazing on it, and her eyes followed the strange dark parallel lines which ran throughout its length and looked exactly like gigantic wheel-tracks. “What makes them?” “The continuous slow downward movement of the ice, I believe. It picks off earth and stones from the sidewalls and gradually throws them into exact lines like that. Curious, isn’t it? I remember it struck me in just the same way the first time I saw it.” It was long before she could be got to look at anything else. “I can’t help expecting it all the time to do something,” she explained. “I know. But it never does. See!--that’s Jungfrau over there, and that one is Finsteraarhorn. And round this other side you can see the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc. Those big white lumps are the Mischabels.” In time he got her to start on her lunch, though she asserted that it felt like eating in church,--desecration.