Pedraglio and the lawyer accomplished the first part of the journey from Albogasio to the stables of Püs, creeping up the precipitous slope like cats, with long and cautious steps. The lawyer advanced in silence, but the other was continually cursing his garments in an undertone. That "beastly hat," that made his forehead slippery with grease, that "infernal tail-coat," that smelt strong of the sweat of ages. They reached Püs without having met a living being. At Püs an old woman came out from between the stables just after they had passed, and exclaimed in amazement: "You up here, Scior Giacomo? At this hour?" "Puff!" murmured the lawyer, and Pedraglio began to blow, "Apff! Apff!" like a pair of bellows. "Such paths as these take the breath away, my good sir," said the old woman. They met no one else until they reached Sostra.
Sostra, a stable about half-way up the mountain, with a barn, a shed, and a cistern, lies some distance back from the path. That path is the very worst in the whole of Valsolda. It would make even a wild goat hang its tongue out. Pedraglio and the lawyer, panting and wet through with perspiration, turned into the Sostra for a moment's rest. There all was silence and solitude. At that height they already breathed a different air. And how much lower the mountain-tops had become! And the lake down there in the depths looked like a river! The lawyer cast anxious glances upwards towards the first crest of the Boglia, where the great beech forest begins. Only half an hour more of climbing! "Come along!" said he. But Pedraglio, in whose legs there still lingered the memory of that other long walk from Loveno to Oria by way of the Passo Stretto, wanted to rest a little longer, and began calmly turning over the leaves of Puttini's old manuscript. It was a monkish poem by some unknown Cremonese of the seventeenth century. "Come along," his companion repeated after a minute or two, and was already preparing to rise when he heard some one approaching. He had barely time to whisper, "Look out!" and turn his back that his face might not be seen. Pedraglio, though he kept his manuscript close to his nose, saw first two customs-guards and then two gendarmes appear upon the path. He warned his friend of this in a low tone, and without turning his head. The two guards halted. One of them saluted: "My respects, Signor Puttini." Turning to the gendarmes, he said: "This gentleman is the first political deputy of Albogasio." The gendarmes saluted also, and Pedraglio raised his hat, and held the manuscript a little higher. The guards wished to rest awhile, but one of the gendarmes ordered them to move on, and when the rest of the company had started forward, he himself approached the Sostra. He was from Ampezzo, and spoke Italian very fluently. "You dog! I hope you don't know me!" thought Pedraglio, vaguely conscious of his dual personality. "We are in for it, anyway!"
"Signor Deputato Politico," said the man, "did you happen to see Signor Maironi at Oria this morning?"
"I? No, indeed. Signor Maironi is in bed and asleep at this hour."
"And you yourself——where are you going?"
"I am going up that mountain, up that accursed Boglia, to see about the communal bull."
"Idiot!" groaned the lawyer inwardly. "He is making it communal now!" But the "communal" was allowed to pass unchallenged. The gendarme, who had a face like a bull-dog, stared hard at his interlocutor. "You are a political deputy," said he insolently, "and you wear that thing on your chin?" Instinctively Pedraglio's hand went to his thin, black, pointed beard, the abhorred beard of the liberals. "I will cut it off," said he, with mock seriousness. "Most certainly, my dear sir! Are you also going up the Boglia!" Very stiffly the gendarme moved away, without answering, and all unconscious of the shameful gibbet to which the political deputy was consigning him.
The two friends congratulated themselves on their narrow escape, but they recognised that the game had become very serious. Now they had the guards to reckon with, who knew Puttini well, and they must find a means of avoiding them. And what if that bull-dog of a gendarme should blab about the beard? "Come on! Come on!" said the lawyer. "Let us follow them, and if we see or hear them turn back we must take to our heels and make off to the left, towards the frontier." This would have been a desperate move, for they were unacquainted with the ground, with which the guards were undoubtedly familiar.
But in order to catch up with his companions the bull-dog had to sweat and pant so hard that when he reached them he had no desire left to speak of beards. Pedraglio and the lawyer climbed slowly upwards, and saw the enemy reach the crest of the hill at the Madonnina beech-tree. There they halted for some time and then disappeared.
The venerable beech-tree, which had the honour of bearing upon its trunk an image of the Madonna, which, on its death, it bequeathed to a small chapel, stood like a sentinel before the great forest of Boglia, like a soldier posted in this dip of the crest, to keep watch over the precipitous hillside, the lake, and the sloping ground of Valsolda. The venerable army of colossal beeches stood marshalled in another silent hollow between the slope of Colmaregia, the easily climbed Dorsi della Nave, the rocky base of the Denti di Vecchia or Canne d'Organo, and that other saddle of the Pian Biscagno, between Colmaregia and the Sasso Grande, and faced the depths of Val Colla from Lugano to Cadro. An open, grass-grown strip of ground stretched along the edge of the crest, between the Madonnina beech-tree and the forest. The two fugitives stopped to consider their position. Which way should they go? Should they look for the little path below the beech-tree, of which the guard who had saved them had spoken, or should they enter the forest? No, it would be unwise to take to the woods, in the wake of the game they had just seen enter them. In the forest they were sure to find the dead leaves lying ankle-deep, and it would be impossible to pass through without attracting the attention of the blood-hounds that were roaming there, and their disguise would not bear close inspection. The path? There were more paths than one beneath the beech-tree. Which was the right one? Pedraglio swore at the absent Franco for not having accompanied them, but the lawyer was studying the Colmaregia, which could be climbed without entering the forest. He had twice made the ascent of the Colmaregia, that superb, slender, grass-grown peak of the Boglia, which the line of the frontier cuts in halves. He knew that from there they would be able to descend to the Swiss village of Brè, and he resolved to try that route. No one was visible on the crest that rises from the Madonnina beech towards the Colmaregia, and the summit was enveloped in clouds.