Half a mile from the scene of his trouble, he entered a little restaurant and sat down to have something to eat and to figure out what he should do.
"This place is going to be too small to hold me," he said to himself over a second cup of coffee. "They'll have all the natives on my trail. I've got to get over the frontier some way. The question before me is how?"
He meditated for some moments, then rose, paid his check and left the restaurant. In front of the door he stopped and looked toward the south, where, in the distance, he knew heavy Austrian patrols faced the Italian pickets only a few miles beyond.
"That's the way I want to go," he told himself. "So I may as well be starting in that direction."
He moved off.
Possibly half a mile from the utmost Austrian line he stopped and sat down. So far he had been unchallenged and now, as he sat there, a plan came to him. He took his revolver from his pocket and examined it.
"I'll try it," he said briefly to himself. "If Chester knew what I was about to do, he would be greatly surprised. But the thing is I am more afraid to stay here than I am to take this chance."
He arose and moved on. As he expected, probably five minutes later, a mounted officer came toward him. There was no one else near. He halted the correspondent.
"Where are you going?" he asked sharply.
"I'll tell you," was the reply. "I am a war correspondent and I am just looking about a bit. Am I going too far? If so, I shall turn back."