Two American Boys in the War Zone

by Levi Worthington Green

The meal that followed, Raymond declared was fit to be served on Olympus. It would, perhaps, have been improved with a little salt, for the boys had forgotten to supply themselves with that desirable condiment. But the delicious roast meat was so much more savory than anything they had eaten for days, and so much better than they expected to have, that it seemed absolutely perfect. Besides furnishing an ample breakfast, there was enough meat left for another meal, and that they packed in the knapsacks with the bread and cheese.

By the time breakfast was concluded the day was far advanced toward noon, and the boys hastened on their way. The trail up the cañon, though the bottom was very sandy, was sufficiently plain to leave the travelers in no doubt. After two or three miles, too, where the cañon became narrow and rocky, the trail turned to the right up the mountain, and there, on the harder ground, it was well beaten.

To the inexperienced traveler it would have seemed that the traffic must be very considerable to maintain so well-defined a road. The boys, however, were familiar with a land of scanty rainfall and knew that in such a dry region tracks are obliterated very slowly. So they were not uneasy about meeting people, for they knew that they might possibly travel two or three days and see no one. If they might only be allowed to place a reasonably safe distance between themselves and the village where they had had such an unpleasant adventure, they would rather meet people than not.

The road plunged at once into difficult mountains, more difficult than the boys had ever seen before. They did not know that the region is called the “Russian Alps,” and that it furnishes scenery which is grander and more magnificent than that in the true Alps. The road would climb up out of a cañon for two or three thousand feet by a series of zigzags over a lofty divide, and descend by another switchback into a similar cañon on the other side. The cañons were narrow, deep, and gloomy, and were crowded so closely together that there was absolutely no level ground between.

From the summit of any high divide the boys looked off both ways and saw only a confused jumble of mountains and ravines, picked out by occasional salient peaks. Sometimes there was a descent of not more than a mile in a direct line, and yet the road was so tortuous that half a day of strenuous walking was required to reach the bottom.

On the sides of the cañons were perched villages, curious collections of rough rock houses, always above the bottom of the cañon, and often far above, away out of reach, except by an hour of hard climbing. As the boys advanced into the mountains the villages were situated at greater heights, and were more difficult of access.

For many hundreds of years the great Caucasian Range was a harbor of refuge for oppressed people of various nationalities. Greek and Roman deserters from the armies of Alexander the Great and Pompey fled to its fastnesses; Mongols found asylum there, and Arabs, Jews, and later, Armenians. All these peoples, to insure their security, built their habitations in inaccessible places. That they planned well was shown by the way in which they held out against both Turks and Persians. There is a saying among the Persians, which has become a proverb: “If the Shah becomes too proud, let him make war with the highlanders of Daghestan.”

Though the boys walked as rapidly as possible in their anxiety to get away from the village where they had been imprisoned, night came while they were still up on the top of the first high divide which they had climbed after leaving the cañon. Away behind, and far below them, was the slope where they knew the village lay, though at that distance they could not make out the houses.

The boys saw that they would be obliged to pass the night on the summit, for while it was still light where they were, down in the cañon into which the trail descended it was already dark. They looked about and found a place where two or three great rocks formed a protected angle, and there they prepared to make their beds. That performance was very simple, consisting only of picking the loose stones from a space large enough for them to lie down. Then Sidney took their supper out of the knapsacks.

“Yum! yum!” said Raymond, as he watched his brother take out the food; “won’t that rabbit be good, though!”