“It’s the Col di Lana,” was the reply; “the mountain that Colonel ‘Peppino’ Garibaldi took partially in a first attempt, and afterwards Gelasio Caetani, the Italo-American mining engineer, blew up and captured completely. It is one of the most important positions on our whole front, for whichever side holds it not only effectually blocks the enemy’s advance, but has also an invaluable sally-port from which to launch his own. We simply _had_ to have it, and it was taken in what was probably the only way humanly possible. It’s Colonel Garibaldi’s headquarters, by the way, where we put up to-night and to-morrow; perhaps you can get him to tell you the story.” * * * * * Where his study window looks out on the yellow Tiber winding through the Rome for which his father had fought so long and so bravely, I had listened one afternoon, not long previously, to that fiery old warrior, General Ricciotti Garibaldi, while he spoke of the war and of Italy’s part in it. “All of my boys are fighting,” he had said, “and my daughters and my wife are nursing. Two of the boys are gone--killed in France--but the other five are with the Italian army. They are all good fighters, I think; but one of them--Peppino, the eldest--is also an able soldier. Or at least he ought to be, for he has been trained in the ‘Garibaldi’ school. There hasn’t been a war (save only that between Russia and Japan) or revolution in any part of the world in the last twenty years that he hasn’t drawn a sword, carried a rifle, or swung a machete. You must make a point of seeing him if you are visiting his part of the front, for he is a good little fellow, is our Peppino.” “And you’ll fare well if you put up with Peppino, too,” his little English mother had added: “He is sure to have a good cook; and then the dear boy was always so fond of sweets that I can’t imagine his doing without them. Besides, Sante is with him, and Sante was running a co-operative creamery when the war broke out. You may be sure that he has foraged his share of the good things too.” * * * * * We found the grandson and namesake of the great Giuseppe Garibaldi quartered in a little string of an Alpine village which occupied the last bit of ground open enough to enjoy even comparative immunity from the snow sliding from either flank of the deep valley which the road followed up to the pass. The “good little fellow” who sprang up from his map and report-littered desk to bid us welcome turned out to be six feet of vigorous manhood, with a powerful pair of shoulders, a face red-bronzed from the sun-glint on the snow, and a grip which fused my fingers in the galvanic pressure of its friendly clasp. The high, narrow forehead, the firm line of the mouth, the steady serious eyes--all were distinctly Garibaldian, recalling to me the words of his mother: “Ricciotti is my handsomest boy, but Peppino is the one most like the old General, his grandfather.”