lightest caressing contact--merely enough to verify the existence of the
automatic under his old classmate's tunic.

If Stent did not notice the impalpable touch, neither did Brown notice it,
watching them. Perhaps the Herr Professor did, but it is not at all
certain, because at that moment there came flopping along over the bracken
and _alpenrosen_ a loppy winged butterfly--a large, whitish creature,
seeming uncertain in its irresolute flight whether to alight at Brown's
feet or go flapping aimlessly on over Brown's head.

The Herr Professor snatched up his net--struck heavily toward the winged
thing--a silent, terrible, sweeping blow with net and rifle clutched
together. Brown went down with a crash.

At the shocking sound of the impact Stent wheeled from the abyss, then
staggered back under the powerful shove from Von Glahn's nervous arm.
Swaying, fighting frantically for foothold, there on the chasm's awful
edge, he balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium. Von Glahn,
rigid, watched him. Then, deathly white, his young eyes looking straight
into the eyes of his old classmate--Stent lost the fight, fell outward,
wider, dropping back into mid-air, down through sheer, tremendous
depths--down there where the broad river seemed only a silver thread and
the forests looked like beds of tender, velvet moss.

After him, fluttering irresolutely, flitted Parnassus Apollo, still
winging its erratic way where God willed it--a frail, dainty, translucent,
wind-blown fleck of white above the gulf--symbol, perhaps of the soul
already soaring up out of the terrific deeps below.

The Herr Professor sweated and panted as he tugged at the silk
handkerchief with which he was busily knotting the arms of the unconscious
American behind his back.

"Pouf! Ugh! Pig-dog!" he grunted--"mit his pockets full of automatic
clips. A Yankee, eh? What I tell you, Siurd?--English and Yankee they are
one in blood and one at heart--pig-dogs effery one. Hey, Siurd, what I
told you already _gesternabend_? The British _schwein_ are in Italy
already. Hola! Siurd! Take his feet and we turn him over _mal_!"

But Von Glahn remained motionless, leaning heavily against the crag, his
back to the abyss, his blond head buried in both arms.

So the Herr Professor, who was a major, too, began, with his powerful,
stubby hands, to pull the unconscious man over on his back. And, as he
worked, he hummed monotonously but contentedly in his bushy beard
somet