The train drew into the station. When it panted forth again, Gethryn stood waving his hand, and watched it out of sight.
Turning at last to leave the platform, he found that the crowd had melted away; only a residue of crimson-capped officials remained. He inquired of one where he could find an expressman and was referred to a mild man absorbing a bad cigar. With him Gethryn arranged for having his traps brought from Trauerbach and consigned to the brothers Schnurr at the “Gasthof zur Post,” Schicksalsee, that inn being close to the station.
This settled, he lighted a cigarette and strolled across to his hotel, sitting down on a stone bench before the door, and looking off at the lake.
It was mid-afternoon. The little place was asleep. Nothing was stirring about the inn excepting a bandy Dachshund, which came wheezing up and thrust a cold nose into the young man’s hand. High in the air a hawk was wheeling; his faint, querulous cry struck Gethryn with an unwonted sense of loneliness. He noticed how yellow some of the trees were on the slopes across the lake. Autumn had come before summer was ended. He leaned over and patted the hound. A door opened, a voice cried, “Ei Dachl! du! Dachl!” and the dog made off at the top of his hobbyhorse gait.
The silence was unbroken except for the harsh cries of the hawk, sailing low now in great circles over the lake. The sun flashed on his broad, burnished wings as he stooped; Gethryn fancied he could see his evil little eyes; finally the bird rose and dwindled away, lost against the mountainside.
He was roused from his reverie by angry voices.
“Cochon! Kerl! Menteur!” cried someone.
The other voice remonstrated with a snarl.
“Bah!” cried the first, “you lie!”
“Alsatians,” thought Rex; “what horrible French!”