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 learned that Lindberg’s politics were those that one learns under the open sky—the eternal peace of Nature, before which war and men, its armed instruments, were a blasphemy.

Perhaps Lindberg would find a way. But what way? How? Udo von Winden, too, was aware of the woodcraft fellowship, for often he had made their duet a trio. Hammersley knew that Udo von Winden as yet suspected nothing of the services Lindberg had rendered him and he wondered whether in this pass the ties of kinship would be strong enough to keep him silent as to the possible capabilities of the old Forester for mischief in Hammersley’s behalf.

Hammersley hoped. He clung to the thought of Lindberg’s fidelity and affection as a dying man clings to the hope of Heaven. He tried to analyze the old man’s capacities for sympathy and courage. To help a man in his position seemed to require larger stores of both of these qualities than human clay was molded for. Lindberg did not fear death, he knew, but the death he courted was the kind of death Hammersley had saved him from, a good death in a fair game with a noble enemy, not the kind of death that awaited Hammersley, a cold, machine-made death against a kitchen wall. And he must know as Hammersley knew that this was what would follow.

The dusk faded into dark and the soldier lit a candle. Hammersley turned his head and examined him attentively. His face was unfamiliar at Blaufelden, one of the men probably sent down at von Stromberg’s orders from the upper district to be useful in just this emergency. Von Stromberg would make no mistakes, of course. He never did make mistakes. He had enough men about him to cope with the situation safely. He