apidly toward
our goal, meanwhile talking cheerfully. I had found it usually a good
passport to say I was an American and I withheld nothing as to my
antecedents and my present errand in Germany. He was more reticent.
He lived in Prussia and was at the moment taking an outing. His
affability did not go the length of revealing his true character. If
he were a high personage _incognito_, I was not to know it.

We reached at last the shore of the Koenigs-See, a blue, deep lake at
a high elevation, encircled by lofty peaks, splintered, storm-beaten,
and capped by snow which never melts, far above the range of grass and
trees. A group of women on the beach had ready two or three broad and
rudely-built boats, and noisily clamoured for our patronage. We
chose what seemed the best, and the women rowers with stout arms soon
propelled us far from shore into the midst of the Alpine sublimity. A
silence fell, broken only by the oar-beats. Then, where the precipices
rose highest we paused. Suddenly a gun was fired. It broke upon
the silence startlingly loud, and after an interval the report
reverberated in a series of crashes from height after height, dying
down into a dull murmur from the steep most distant. I was awed by the
sight and the sound, and awed too, by my companion. He had thrown off
his hat and knapsack and stood with his fine stature at the bow. His
classic face was turned upward to the peaks, and with a look as if he
felt their power. He waved his arms toward them as if in a salutation
to things sentient. The man seemed to befit the environment, majestic
though it was.

We returned sooner than we desired from our excursion on the water,
the boat-women being over eager for new passengers. My companion
resumed his knapsack and it was time to part. To his question as to
my plan I replied that I was there simply for the scenery, that I
purposed to make my way back to Salzburg on foot by the paths that
promised most, and should be guided by whatever I might learn. He said
that he, too, was bound for Salzburg, walking for pleasure; and when I
thereupon suggested that we might go on together, he readily fell in,
and we trudged forward. Comradeship grew strong as the day passed,
then a night in an unfrequented inn, then another day. We discussed
things near and far, ancient and recent, I talking most but he was
always genial and quietly responsive, and my confidence was invited.
I told him of the little fresh-water college