"Good Lord!" exclaimed Stent, for a brief second believing in the part he was playing; "I supposed this to be a free alp."
He and Von Glahn laughed; and the latter said, still frankly amused: "Soyez tranquille, Messieurs; Count von Plessis permits my friends—in my company—to shoot the Queen's alm."
With a lithe movement, wholly graceful, he[pg 48] slipped the rücksack from his shoulders, let it fall among the alpenrosen beside his sporting rifle.
"We have a long day and a longer night ahead of us," he said pleasantly, looking from Stent to Brown. "The snow limit lies just above us; the ibex should pass here at dawn on their way back to the peak. Shall we consolidate our front, gentlemen—and make it a Quadruple Entente?"
Stent replied instantly: "We join you with thanks, Siurd. My one ibex hunt is no experience at all compared to your record of a veteran—" He looked full and significantly at Brown; continuing: "As you say, we have all day and—a long night before us. Let us make ourselves comfortable here in the sun before we take—our final stations."
And they seated themselves in the lee of the crag, foregathering fraternally in the warm alpine sunshine.
The Herr Professor von Dresslin grunted as he sat down. After he had lighted his pipe he grunted again, screwed together his butter[pg 49]fly net and gazed hard through thick-lensed spectacles at Brown.
"Does it interest you, sir, the pursuit of the diurnal Lepidoptera?" he inquired, still staring intently at the American.
"I don't know anything about them," explained Brown. "What are Lepidoptera?"
"The schmetterling—the butterfly. In Amerika, sir, you have many fine species, notably Parnassus clodius and the Parnassus smintheus of the four varietal forms." His prominent eyes shifted from one detail of Brown's costume to another—not apparently an intelligent examination, but a sort of protruding and indifferent stare.