r a day they
set out at the first cockcrow, and before the noontide heat reached the
lovely Kinzigthal, which lies all along the way from Hausach to
Hornberg. Over the door of a wayside inn a signboard, festooned with
freshly-cut carpenter's shavings, beckoned invitingly to them, and here
the young men halted. The view from this place was particularly
beautiful. The road made a kind of terrace halfway up the mountain, on
one side rising sheer up for a hundred feet to its summit, thickly
wooded all the way, on the other side sloping to the wide valley, where
the Gutach flowed, at times tumbling over rough stones, or again
spreading itself softly like oil, through flat meadow land. Below lay
the little town of Hornberg, with its crooked streets and alleys, its
stately square, framing an old church, several inns, and
prosperous-looking houses and shops. Beyond the valley rose a high,
steep hill, with a white path climbing in zigzags through its wooded
sides. On the summit a white house with many windows was perched,
seeming to hang perpendicularly a thousand feet above the valley. Its
whitewashed walls stood out sharply against the background of green
pine trees, clearly visible for many miles round. A conspicuous
inscription in large black letters showed that this audacious and
picturesque house was the Schloss hotel, and a glance at the gray
ruined tower which rose behind it gave at once a meaning to the name.
Behind the hill, with its outline softened by trees and encircled by
the blue sky, were ridges of other hills in parallel lines meeting the
horizon, alternately sharp-edged and rounded, stretching from north to
south. They seemed like some great sea, with majestic wave-hills and
wave-valleys; behind the first appeared a second, then a third, then a
fourth, as far as one's eye could see; each one of a distinct tone of
color, and of all the shades from the deepest green through blue and
violet to vaporous pale gray.

The sight of this picture had decided Wilhelm Eynhardt not to go any
further. The others had resolved to push on to Triberg the same day,
and above all, not to turn back till they had bathed in the Boden-see.
As every persuasion was powerless to alter Eynhardt's decision, they
separated, and the travelers started on their walk to Triberg.
Eynhardt, however, stayed at Hornberg, meaning to climb to the Schloss
hotel again from the other side.

Wilhelm Eynhardt was a young man of twenty-four, tall and sli