After the colonel’s return, Mr Blumenthal found many difficulties in the way of that social ease which was his ideal. The ladies were never to be met with unaccompanied by the colonel or Gethryn; usually both were in attendance. If he spoke to Mrs Dene, or Ruth, it was always the colonel who answered, and there was a gleam in that trim warrior’s single eyeglass which did not harmonize with the grave politeness of his voice and manner.

Rex had never taken Mr Blumenthal so seriously. He called him “Our Bowery brother,” and “the Gentleman from West Brighton,” and he passed some delightful moments in observing his gruesome familiarity with the maids, his patronage of the grave Jaegers, and his fraternal attitude toward the head of the house. It was great to see him hook a heavy arm in an arm of the tall, military Herr F?rster, and to see the latter drop it.

But there came an end to Rex’s patience.

One morning, when they were sitting over their coffee out of doors, Mr Blumenthal walked into their midst. He wore an old flannel shirt, and trousers too tight for him, inadequately held up by a strap. He displayed a tin bait box and a red and green float, and said he had come to inquire of Rex “vere to dig a leetle vorms,” and also to borrow of him “dot feeshpole mitn seelbern ringes.”

The request, and the grossness of his appearance before the ladies, were too much for a gentleman and an angler.

Rex felt his gorge rise, and standing up brusquely, he walked away. Ruth thoughtlessly slipped after him and murmured over his shoulder:

“Friend of yours?”

Gethryn’s fists unclenched and came out of his pockets and he and Ruth went away together, laughing under the trees.

Mr Blumenthal stood where Rex had left him, holding out the bait-box and gazing after them. Then he turned and looked at the colonel and his wife. Perspiration glistened on his pasty, pale face and the rolls of fat that crowded over his flannel collar. His little, dead, white-rimmed, pale gray eyes had the ferocity of a hog’s which has found something to rend and devour. He looked into their shocked faces and made a bow.

“Goot ma — a — rnin, Mister and Missess Dene!” he said, and turned his back.

The elderly couple exchanged glances as he disappeared.

“We won’t mention this to the children,” said the gentle old lady.

That was the last they saw of him. Nobody knew where he kept himself in the interval, but about a week later he came running down with a valise in his hand and jumped into a carriage from the “Green Bear” at Schicksalsee, which had just brought some people out and was returning empty. He forgot to give the usual “Trinkgeld” to the servants, and a lively search in his room discovered nothing but a broken collar button and a crumpled telegram in French. But Grethi had her compensation that evening, when she led the conversation in the kitchen and Mr Blumenthal was discussed in several South German dialects.

By this time August was well advanced, but there had been as yet no “Jagd-partie,” as Sepp called the hunting excursion planned with such enthusiasm weeks before. After that first day in the trout stream, Ruth not only suffered more from fatigue than she had expected, but the little cough came back, causing her parents to draw the lines of discipline very tight indeed.

Ruth, whose character seemed made of equal parts of good taste and reasonableness, sweet temper and humor, did not offer the least opposition to discipline, and when her mother remarked that, after all, there was a difference between a schoolgirl and a young lady, she did not deny it. The colonel and Rex went off once or twice with the Jaegers, but in a halfhearted way, bringing back more experience than game. Then Rex went on a sketching tour. Then the colonel was suddenly called again to Munich to meet some old army men just arrived from home, and so it was not until about a week after Mr Blumenthal’s departure that, one evening when the Sennerins were calling the cows on the upper Alm, a party of climbers came up the side of the Red Peak and stopped at “Nani’s Hütterl.”

Sepp threw down the green sack from his shoulders to the bench before the door and shouted:

“Nani! du! Nani!” No answer.

“Mari und Josef!” he muttered; then raising his voice, again he called for Nani with all his lungs.

A muffled answer came from somewhere around the other side of the house. “Ja! komm glei!” And then there was nothing to do but sit on the bench and watch the sunset fade from peak to peak while they waited.

Nani did not come “glei” — but she came pretty soon, bringing with her two brimming milk-pails as an excuse for the delay.

She and Sepp engaged at once in a conversation, to which the colonel listened with feelings that finally had to seek expression.

“I believe,” he said in a low voice, “that German is the language of the devil.”

“I fancy he’s master of more than one. And besides, this isn’t German, any more than our mountain dialects are English. And really,” Ruth went on, “if it comes to comparing dialects, it seems to me ours can’t stand the test. These are harsh enough. But where in the world is human speech so ugly, so poverty-stricken, so barren of meaning and feeling, and shade and color and suggestiveness, as the awful talk of our rustics? A Bavarian, a Tyroler, often speaks a whole poem in a single word, like — ”

“Do you think one of those poems is being spoken about our supper now, Daisy?”

“Sybarite!” cried Ruth, with that tinkle of fun in her voice which was always sounding between her and her parents; “I won’t tell you.” The truth was she did not dare to tell her hungry companions that, so far as she had been able to understand Sepp and Nani, their conversation had turned entirely on a platform dance — which they called a “Schuh-plattl” — and which they proposed to attend together on the following Sunday.

But Sepp, having had his gossip like a true South German hunter-man, finally did ask the important question:

“Ach! supper! du lieber Himmel!” There was little enough of that for the Herrschaften. There was black bread and milk, and there were some Semmel, but those were very old and hard.

“No cheese?”

“Nein!”

“No butter?”

“Nein!”

“Coffee?”

“Yes, but no sugar.”

“Herr Je!”

When Sepp delivered this news to his party they all laughed and said black bread and milk would do. So Nani invited them into her only room — the rest of the “Hütterl” was kitchen and cow-shed — and brought the feast.

A second Sennerin came with her this time, in a costume which might have startled them, if they had not already seen others like it. It consisted of a pair of high blue cotton trousers drawn over her skirts, the latter bulging all round inside the jeans. She had no teeth and there was a large goiter on her neck.

“Good Heavens!” muttered the colonel, setting down his bowl of milk and twisting around to stare out of the window behind him.

“Poor thing! she can’t help it!” murmured Ruth.

“No more she can, you dear, good girl!” said Rex, and his eyes shone very kindly. Ruth caught her breath at the sudden beating of her heart.

What was left of daylight came through the little window and fell upon her face; it was as white as a flower, and very quiet.

Dusk was setting in when Sepp made his appearance. He stood about in some hesitation, and finally addressed himself to Ruth as the one who could best understand his dialect. She listened and then turned to her father.

“Sepp doesn’t exactly know where to lodge me. He had thought I could stay here with Nani — ”

“Not if I can help it!” cried the colonel.

“While,” Ruth went on — “while you and Rex went up to the Jaeger’s hut above there on the rocks. He says it’s very rough at the Jagd-hütte.”

“Is anyone else there? What does Sepp mean by telling us now for the first time? “ demanded the colonel sharply.

“He says he was afraid I wouldn’t come if I knew how rough it was — and that — “ added Ruth, laughing — “he says would have been such a pity! Besides, he thought Nani was alone — and I could have had her room while she slept on the hay in the loft. I’m sure this is as neat as a mountain shelter could be,” said Ruth — looking about her at the high piled feather beds, covered in clean blue and white check, and the spotless floor and the snow white pine table. “I’d like to stay here, only the — the other lady has just arrived too!”

“The lady in the blue overalls?”

“Yes — and — “ Ruth stopped, unwilling to say how little relish she felt for the society of the second Sennerin. But Rex and her father were on their feet and speaking together.

“We will go and see about the Jagd-hütte. You don’t mind being left for five minutes?”

“The idea! go along, you silly boys!”

The colonel came back very soon, and in the best of spirits.

“It’s all right, Daisy! It’s a dream of luxury!” and carried her off, hardly giving her time to thank Nani and to say a winningly kind word to the hideous one, who gazed back at her, pitchfork in hand, without reply. No one will ever know whether or not she felt any more cheered by Ruth’s pleasant ways than the cows did who were putting their heads out from the stalls where she was working.

The dream of luxury was a low hut of two rooms. The outer one had a pile of fresh hay in one corner and a few blankets. Some of the dogs were already curled up there. The inner room contained two large bunks with hay and rugs and blankets; a bench ran where the bunks were not, around the sides; a shelf was above the bunks; there was a cupboard and a chest and a table.

“Why, this is luxury!” cried Ruth.

“Well — I think so, too. I’m immensely relieved. Sepp says artists bring their wives up here to stay over for the sunrise. You’ll do? Eh?”

“I should think so!”

“Good! then Rex and I and Sepp and the Dachl” — he always would say “Dockles” — “will keep guard outside against any wild cows that may happen to break loose from Nani. Good night, little girl! Sure you’re not too tired?”

Rex stood hesitating in the open door. Ruth went and gave him her hand. He kissed it, and she, meaning to please him with the language she knew he liked best, said, smiling, “Bonne nuit, mon ami!” At the same moment her father passed her, and the two men closed the door and went away together. The last glimmer of dusk was in the room. Ruth had not seen Gethryn’s face.

“Bonne nuit, mon ami!” Those tender, half forgotten — no! never, never forgotten words! Rex threw himself on the hay and lay still, his hands clenched over his breast.

The kindly colonel was sound asleep when Sepp came in with a tired but wagging hound, from heaven knows what scramble among the higher cliffs by starlight. The night air was chilly. Rex called the dog to his side and took him in his arms. “We will keep each other warm,” he said, thinking of the pups. And Zimbach, assenting with sentimental whines, was soon asleep. But Gethryn had not closed his eyes when the Jaeger sprang up as the day broke. A faint gray light came in at the little window. All the dogs were leaping about the room. Sepp gave himself a shake, and his toilet was made.

“Colonel,” said Rex, standing over a bundle of rugs and hay in which no head was visible, “Colonel! Sepp says we must hurry if we want to see a ‘gams.”’

The colonel turned over. What he said was: “Damn the Gomps!” But he thought better of that and stood up, looking cynical.

“Come and have a dip in the spring,” laughed Rex.

When they took their dripping heads out of the wooden trough into which a mountain spring was pouring and running out again, leaving it always full, and gazed at life — between rubs of the hard crash towel — it had assumed a kinder aspect.

Half an hour later, when they all were starting for the top, Ruth let the others pass her, and pausing for a moment with her hand on the lintel, she looked back into the little smoke-blackened hut. The door of the inner room was open. She had dreamed the sweetest dream of her life there.

Before the others could miss her she was beside them, and soon was springing along in advance, swinging her alpenstock. It seemed as if she had the wings as well as the voice of a bird.

Der Jaeger zieht in grünem Wald

Mit fr?lichem Halloh!

she sang.

Sepp laughed from the tip of his feather to the tip of his beard.

“Wie’s gn?dige Fraulein hat G’müth!” he said to Rex.

“What’s that?” asked the colonel.

“He says,” translated Rex freely, “What a lot of every delightful quality Ruth possesses!”

But Ruth heard, and turned about and was very severe with him. “Such shirking! Translate me Gemüth at once, sir, if you please!”

“Old Wiseboy at Yarvard confessed he couldn’t, short of a treatise, and who am I to tackle what beats Wiseboy?”

“Can you, Daisy?” asked her father.

“Not in the least, but that’s no reason for letting Rex off.” Her voice took on a little of the pretty bantering tone she used to her parents. She was beginning to feel such a happy confidence in Rex’s presence.

They were in the forest now, moving lightly over the wet, springy leaves, probing cautiously for dangerous, loose boulders and treacherous slides. When they emerged, it was upon a narrow plateau; the rugged limestone rocks rose on one side, the precipice plunged down on the other. Against the rocks lay patches of snow, grimy with dirt and pebbles; from a cleft the long greenish white threads of “Peter’s beard” waved at them; in a hollow bloomed a thicket of pink Alpen-rosen.

They had just reached a clump of low firs, around the corner of a huge rock, when a rush of loose stones and a dull sound of galloping made them stop. Sepp dropped on his face; the others followed his example. The hound whined and pulled at the leash.

On the opposite slope some twenty Hirsch-cows, with their fawns, were galloping down into the valley, carrying with them a torrent of earth and gravel. Presently they slackened and stopped, huddling all together into a thicket. The Jaeger lifted his head and whispered “Stück”; that being the complimentary name by which one designates female deer in German.

“All?” said Rex, under his breath. At the same moment Ruth touched his shoulder.

On the crest of the second ridge, only a hundred yards distant, stood a stag, towering in black outline, the sun just coming up behind him. Then two other pairs of antlers rose from behind the ridge, two more stags lifted their heads and shoulders and all three stood silhouetted against the sky. They tossed and stamped and stared straight at the spot where their enemies lay hidden.

A moment, and the old stag disappeared; the others followed him.

“If they come again, shoot,” said Sepp.

Rex passed his rifle to Ruth. They waited a few minutes; then the colonel jumped up.

“I thought we were after chamois!” he grumbled.

“So we are,” said Rex, getting on his feet.

A shot rang out, followed by another. They turned, sharply. Ruth, looking half frightened, was lowering the smoking rifle from her shoulder. Across the ravine a large stag was swaying on the edge; then he fell and rolled to the bottom. The hound, loosed, was off like an arrow, scrambling and tumbling down the side. The four hunters followed, somehow. Sepp got down first and sent back a wild Jodel. The stag lay there, dead, and his splendid antlers bore eight prongs.

When Ruth came up she had her hand on her father’s arm. She stood and leaned on him, looking down at the stag. Pity mingled with a wild intoxicating sense of achievement confused her. A rich color flushed her cheek, but the curve of her lips was almost grave.

Sepp solemnly drew forth his flask of Schnapps and, taking off his hat to her, drank “Waidmann’s Heil!” — a toast only drunk by hunters to hunters.

Gethryn shook hands with her twenty times and praised her until she could bear no more.

She took her hand from her father’s arm and drew herself up, determined to preserve her composure. The wind blew the little bright rings of hair across her crimson cheek and wrapped her kilts about her slender figure as she stood, her rifle poised across her shoulder, one hand on the stock and one clasped below the muzzle.

“Are you laughing at me, Rex?”

“You know I am not!”

Never had she been so happy in her whole life.

The game drawn and hung, to be fetched later, they resumed their climb and hastened upward toward the peak.

Ruth led. She hardly felt the ground beneath her, but sprang from rock to moss and from boulder to boulder, till a gasp from Gethryn made her stop and turn about.

“Good Heavens, Ruth! what a climber you are!”

And now the colonel sat down on the nearest stone and flatly refused to stir.

“Oh! is it the hip, Father?” cried Ruth, hurrying back and kneeling beside him.

“No, of course it isn’t! It’s indignation!” said her father, calmly regarding her anxious face. “If you can’t go up mountains like a human girl, you’re not going up any more mountains with me.”

“Oh! I’ll go like a human snail if you want, dear! I’ve been too selfish! It’s a shame to tire you so!”

“Indeed, it is a perfect shame!” cried the colonel.

Ruth had to laugh. “As I remarked to Rex, early this morning,” her father continued, adjusting his eyeglass, “hang the Gomps!” Rex discreetly offered no comment. “Moreover,” the colonel went on, bringing all the severity his eyeglass permitted to bear on them both, “I decline to go walking any longer with a pair of lunatics. I shall confide you both to Sepp and will wait for you at the upper Shelter.”

“But it’s only indignation; it isn’t the hip, Father?” said Ruth, still hanging about him, but trying to laugh, since he would have her laugh.

He saw her trouble, and changing his tone said seriously, “My little girl, I’m only tired of this scramble, that’s all.”

She had to be contented with this, and they separated, her father taking a path which led to the right, up a steep but well cleared ascent to a plateau, from which they could see the gable of a roof rising, and beyond that the tip-top rock with its white cross marking the highest point. The others passed to the left, around and among huge rocks, where all the hollows were full of grimy snow. The ground was destitute of trees and all shrubs taller than the hardy Alpen-rosen. Masses of rock lay piled about the limestone crags that formed the summit. The sun had not yet tipped their peak with purple and orange, but some of the others were lighting up. No insects darted about them; t............