Stent lifted himself on both elbows and gazed across the chasm at the lower slopes of the alm opposite, all ablaze with dewy wild flowers. Down it, between fern and crag and bracken, flashed a brook, broken into in silvery sections amid depths of velvet green below, where evidently it tumbled headlong into that thin, shining thread which was a broad river. "Yes," mused Stent, "Siurd von Glahn and I were comrades on many a foot tour through such mountains as these. He was a delightful fellow, my classmate Siurd----" Brown’s swift rigid grip on his arm checked him to silence; there came the clink of an iron-shod foot on the ledge; they snatched their rifles from the fern patch; two figures stepped around the shelf of rock, looming up dark against the dazzling sky. CHAPTER V PARNASSUS Brown, squatting cross-legged among the alpine roses, squinted along his level rifle. "Halt!" he said with a pleasant, rising inflection in his quiet voice. "Stand very still, gentlemen," he added in German. "Drop your rifles. Drop ’em quick!" he repeated more sharply. "Up with your hands--hold them up high! Higher, if you please!--quickly. Now, then, what are you doing on this alp?" What they were doing seemed apparent enough--two gentlemen of Teutonic persuasion, out stalking game--deer, rehbok or chamois--one a tall, dark, nice-looking young fellow wearing the usual rough gray jacket with stag-horn buttons, green felt hat with feather, and leather breeches of the alpine hunter. His knees and aristocratic ankles were bare and bronzed. He laughed a little as he held up his arms. The other man was stout and stocky rather than fat. He had the square red face and bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and the spectacles of a Herr Professor. He held up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers spread out wide. They seemed rather soiled. From his _rücksack_ stuck out a butterfly net in two sections and the deeply scalloped, silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss adorned his green felt hat; a green tin box punched full of holes was slung from his broad shoulders. Brown, lowering his rifle cautiously, was already getting to his feet from the trampled bracken, when, behind him, he heard Stent’s astonished voice break forth in pedantic German: "Siurd! Is it _thou_ then?" "Harry Stent!" returned the dark, nice-looking young fellow amiably. And, in a delightful voice and charming English: "Pray, am I to offer you a shake hands," he inquired smilingly; "or shall I continue to invoke the Olympian gods with classically uplifted and imploring arms?" Brown let Stent pass forward. Then, stepping back, he watched the greeting between these two old classmates. His rifle, grasped between stock and barrel, hung loosely between both hands. His expression became vacantly good humoured; but his brain was working like lightning.