It was necessary to take the only guide I had and to
go straight upwards wherever the line of greatest inclination seemed
to lie, for that at least would take me to a summit and probably to a
view of the valley; whereas if I tried to make for the shoulder of the
hill (which had been my first intention) I might have wandered about
till nightfall.
It was an old man in a valley called the Curicante in Colorado that
taught me this, if one lost one's way going _upwards_ to make at once
along the steepest line, but if one lost it going _downwards_, to
listen for water and reach it and follow it. I wish I had space to
tell all about this old man, who gave me hospitality out there. He was
from New England and was lonely, and had brought out at great expense
a musical box to cheer him. Of this he was very proud, and though it
only played four silly hymn tunes, yet, as he and I listened to it,
heavy tears came into his eyes and light tears into mine, because
these tunes reminded him of his home. But I have no time to do more
than mention him, and must return to my forest.
I climbed, then, over slippery pine needles and under the charged air
of those trees, which was full of dim, slanting light from the
afternoon sun, till, nearly at the summit, I came upon a clearing
which I at once recognized as a military road, leading to what we used
to call a 'false battery', that is, a dug-out with embrasures into
which guns could be placed but in which no guns were. For ever since
the French managed to produce a really mobile heavy gun they have
constructed any amount of such auxiliary works between the permanent
forts. These need no fixed guns to be emplaced, since the French can
use now one such parapet, now another, as occasion serves, and the
advantage is that your guns are never useless, but can always be
brought round where they are needed, and that thus six guns will do
more work than twenty used to do.
This false battery was on the brow of the hill, and when I reached it
I looked down the slope, over the brushwood that hid the wire
entanglements, and there was the whole valley of the Moselle at my
feet.
As this was the first really great height, so this was the first
really great view that I met with on my pilgrimage. I drew it
carefully, piece by piece, sitting there a long time in the declining
sun and noting all I saw. Archettes, just below; the flat valley with
the river winding from side to side; the straight rows of poplar
trees; the dark pines on the hills, and the rounded mountains rising
farther and higher into the distance until the last I saw, far off to
the south-east, must have been the Ballon d'Alsace at the sources of
the Moselle - the hill that marked the first full stage in my journey
and that overlooked Switzerland.
