"Drop your rifles. Drop 'em quick!" he repeated more sharply. "Up with your hands—hold them up high! Higher, if you please!—quickly. Now, then, what are you doing on this alp?"
What they were doing seemed apparent enough—two gentlemen of Teutonic persuasion, out stalking game—deer, rehbok or chamois—one a tall, dark, nice-looking young fellow wearing the usual rough gray jacket with stag-horn buttons, green felt hat with feather, and leather breeches of the alpine hunter. His[pg 44] knees and aristocratic ankles were bare and bronzed. He laughed a little as he held up his arms.
The other man was stout and stocky rather than fat. He had the square red face and bushy beard of a beer-nourished Teuton and the spectacles of a Herr Professor. He held up his blunt hands with all ten stubby fingers spread out wide. They seemed rather soiled.
From his rücksack stuck out a butterfly net in two sections and the deeply scalloped, silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss adorned his green felt hat; a green tin box punched full of holes was slung from his broad shoulders.
Brown, lowering his rifle cautiously, was already getting to his feet from the trampled bracken, when, behind him, he heard Stent's astonished voice break forth in pedantic German:
"Siurd! Is it thou then?"
"Harry Stent!" returned the dark, nice-looking young fellow amiably. And, in a delightful voice and charming English:
"Pray, am I to offer you a shake hands," he[pg 45] inquired smilingly; "or shall I continue to invoke the Olympian gods with classically uplifted and imploring arms?"
Brown let Stent pass forward. Then, stepping back, he watched the greeting between these two old classmates. His rifle, grasped between stock and barrel, hung loosely between both hands. His expression became vacantly good humoured; but his brain was working like lightning.
Stent's firm hand encountered Von Glahn's and held it in questioning astonishment. Looking him in the eyes he said slowly: "Siurd, it is good to see you again. It is amazing to meet you this way. I am glad. I have never forgotten you.... Only a moment ago I was speaking to Brown about you—of our wonderful ibex hunt! I was telling Brown—my comrade—" he turned his head slightly and presented the two young men—"Mr. Brown, an American——"