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An old man, clothed in picturesque patches and tatters, paused and leaned on his stout oak staff He was tired He drew off his rusty felt hat, swept a sleeve across his forehead, and sighed He had walked many miles that day, and even now the journey's end, near as it really was, seeht, whether the bed were of earth or of straw His peasant garb rather enhanced his fine head His eyes were blue and clear and far-seeing, the eyes of a hunter or a woodsht or the dis near or far or roundabout His broas high, his nose large and bridged; a face of ray spikes, like one who has gone unshaven several days His hands, folded over the round, polished knuckle of his staff, were tanned and soiled, but they were long and slender, and the callouses were pink, a certain indication that they were fresh

The afternoon glow of the Septehway From where he stood the road trailed off miles behind and wound up five hundred feet orIt was not a steep road, but a long and weary one, a steady, enervating, unbroken cliranite side to the hanging city, broke in a wide plain, and then went on up several thousand feet to the ledges of dragon-green ice and snow To the right sparkled and flashed a wild mountain streareen and brown and yelloith vineyards and hops and corn, spread out and on to the north, stopping abruptly at the base of the more formidable chain of lacial cleft, now purpling and darkening as the sun endheit; and toward this the wayfarer gazedof the exquisite panoraaze wavered, and that particular patch in the valley, brown froht and chained his interest for a space It was the littered and scintillated as squadron after squadron of cavalry dashed fro circles

"The philosophy of war is to prepare for it," mused the old man, with a jerk of his shoulders "France! So the mutter runs There is a Napoleon in France, but no Bonaparte Clatter-clatter! Bang-bang!" He laughed ironically and cautiously glanced at his watch, an article which must have cost him many and many a potato-patch He pulled his hat over his eyes, scratched the irritating stubble on his chin, and stepped forward