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Page 46
"It's proved," said Wharton, "when sober fellows like Scott go away on
such errands. I think you'll win through, Scott, in the way you wish."
John knew that the good wishes of these two friends, so undemonstrative
and so true, would follow him all the time and he choked a little. But
when the lump in his throat was gone he spoke casually, as if he were
not venturing into a region that was sown thick and deep with dragon's
teeth.
At the advice of Captain Colton he slept several hours more that
afternoon, and in the darkest part of the night, clothed simply like a
peasant, but carrying a passport that would take him through the French
lines, he said good-by to his friends, and, taking his life in his
hands, departed upon his mission. Lest he be taken for a _franc-tireur_
he was entirely unarmed, and he wore a thick blue blouse, gray trousers
equally thick, and heavy boots. He also carried, carefully concealed
about his person, a supply of gold and German notes, although there
would not be much use for money in that region of the dragon's teeth
into which he was venturing.
He re-crossed the little river on the same high-arched bridge by which
he had come, skirted the hospital camp, and then bore off toward the
east. It was past midnight, the skies were free from snow, but there
were many low, hovering clouds which suited his purpose. He was still
back of the French lines, but his pass would take him through them at
any time he wished. The problem was how to pass those of Germany, and
the difficulty was very great, because for a long distance here the
hostile trenches were only three or four hundred yards apart.
He discerned to the eastward a dim line of hills which, as he knew, rose
farther on into mountains, and it occurred to him that he might find it
easier to get through in rough country than in the region of low,
rounded hills, where he now stood. He carried a knapsack, well filled
with food, a blanket roll, and now he resolved to push on all night and
most of the following day, before passing the French lines.
Keeping a watchful eye he pursued his steady course across the hills.
The depth of the snow impeded speed, but action kept his heart strong.
The terrible waiting was over, he was at least trying to do something.
Fresh interests sprang up also. It was a strange, white, misty world
upon which he looked. He traveled through utter desolation, but to the
east, inclining to the north was a limitless double line, which now and
then broke into flashes of flame, while from points further back came
that mutter of the big guns like the groanings of huge, primeval
monsters.
It seemed to John barbarous and savage to the last degree. He knew that
he was in one of the most densely populated and highly cultivated
portions of the world, but the dragon's teeth were coming up more
thickly even than in the time of old Cadmus.
He walked until it was almost morning without seeing a human being, and
then, the snow having dragged on him so heavily, he felt that he must
take rest. Crawling into a hole in the snow that he scraped out under a
ledge, he folded himself between his blankets and went to steep.
CHAPTER VII
THE PURSUIT
John Scott would not perhaps have slept so well in a hole in the snow if
he had not been inured to life in a trench, reeking in turn with mud,
slush, ice and water. His present quarters were a vast improvement, dry
and warm with the aid of the blankets, and he had crisp fresh air in
abundance to breathe. Hence in such a place in the Inn of the Hedge and
the Snow he slept longer than he had intended.
His will to awake at the rising of the sun was not sufficient. The
soothing influence of warmth and the first real physical relaxation that
he had enjoyed in three or four days overpowered his senses, and kept
him slumbering on peacefully long after the early silver of the rising
sun had turned to gold on the snow.
He had dug so deep a hole and he lay so close under the hedge that even
a vigilant scout looking for an enemy might have passed within a dozen
feet of him without seeing him. Another drift of snow falling after he
had gone to sleep had covered up his footsteps and he was as securely
hidden as if he had been a hundred miles, instead of only a scant two
miles, from the double French and German line.
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