n ahead, side by side, leaving the young women to loiter behind and
pick mayflowers. Rhododendrons, orchids, and epigonitis rewarded their
search in abundance. From the valley below came up the bleating of goats
and the flute-like notes of the blackbird.

"Are you really in earnest, Aaron, about defending the town from this
position in case of an attack?" asked Manasseh.

"Wasn't it from the Szekler Stone that our fathers repulsed the whole
Mongolian horde?" was the rejoinder.

"But that was in the old days, in old-fashioned warfare."

"Well, the Wallachians are now no further advanced in military science
than were the Tartars then."

"Yes, but at that time the Szekler Stone was in a condition for
defence," objected Manasseh.

"And how do you know I haven't put it in such a condition again?" asked
the other.

"I should like to see how you have accomplished it."

"I shall not show you, for you are not a soldier, and no civilian shall
see my fortifications. I will show them to the two young ladies; they
count as combatants. The other day they coaxed Alexander to lend them
his pistols, and since then they have been practising shooting at a mark
in the garden behind the house."

"What, does my wife know how to handle a pistol?"

"To be sure; and it's no elderberry popgun, either. You may depend upon
it, she'll sell her life dear. You needn't laugh."

The rocky height known as the Szekler Stone commands a view of vast
extent. Nestled among the hills, twenty-two villages may be counted
from its summit, with the Aranyos River winding this way and that among
them, like a ribbon of silver, until it empties into another tortuous
stream which carries its waters to the Maros. But on the opposite side,
toward the northwest, in striking contrast with this picture of happy
human industry, a boundless waste of rugged, forest-clad mountain peaks
meets the eye, with no sign of house or hamlet.

From the side toward Toroczko, which lay smiling in the valley, its
fruit-trees in full bloom, its fields looking like so many squares of
green carpet, and its church-spire rising conspicuous above the foliage,
one could hear, like the throbbing of a giant's heart, the heavy beating
of steam hammers. There the scythe and the ploughshare were being
fashioned, and all the implements wherewith the hand of man subdued to
his use those rugged hillsides.

"If I could only paint that picture!" sighed Manasseh.

"You succeeded with the Co