akes a room for a night."

So Dick resolved not to worry about the future, but to have a look
around the town. He didn't think much of Semlin. It might be old, but it
was not especially interesting. It seemed to him dirty, for one thing,
and he didn't like dirt. Belgrade, across the river Save, however,
fascinated him. There was something romantic about the great citadel. He
knew that it had withstood siege after siege in the olden times, and the
fact that it probably wouldn't be used as a fortress at all if war broke
out that day didn't detract a bit from the interest of its history.

"Some fort, all right!" he said to himself. "I can just see those old
Johnnies trying to rush that hill, in days when men fought hand to hand,
instead of laying off a few miles and pounding away at a place with big
guns. If they're going to have another scrap here, I hope I'm around to
see some of it. I'd like to see a war."

He was to be gratified in that modest wish!

There was one noticeable thing. Semlin was a garrisoned town; a regiment
of the Austrian army was always there. But now a great many extra troops
were always more or less in evidence. Trains would come in, with
soldiers looking out from every window. The men would detrain, march
through the town, and disappear. After leaving Hallo's office, Dick saw
a full regiment arrive like that, march through the streets, and
disappear to the west. Now he stopped and began doing a sum in mental
arithmetic.

"Gee!" he said, to himself. "I bet the consul's right! I bet the
Austrians do mean to start something! That makes about fifteen thousand
men I've seen brought in here just since I've been here. I wonder if the
Servians know about it? I should think it would be a pretty good thing
for them to have a few people here in Semlin just sort of keeping their
eyes open."

Dick did not know to the full how serious the situation was. But then
very few people in Semlin did. Here news was being suppressed. At this
point, where the border brought masses of Servians and Hungarians into
such close contact, it was not considered wise to allow the newspapers
to print all they knew. It was understood that Austria had made certain
demands, but it did not seem to occur to anyone in Semlin that it was
possible for tiny Servia to defy the mighty Austrian empire. But as a
matter of fact, the final steps that led to the great war were being
taken, and war was already regarded as inevitable by those wh