"Sounds like another squad of soldiers," David whispered.

"Trail ahead. Winds up through Oberried," Maria whispered back. "From Kirchzarten to the top of Feldberg. Shorter, but more open and populated. Doesn't have cover like this area."

They sat still and listened as the squad descended the trail about fifty yards across the slope from their little grove. As they faded down the hill, Maria returned to her nursing. "We can leave the dressings off to let the fresh air and sunshine do their work. Put them back on before we go to bed." She gently stroked his face. "Let me kiss your wounded lip to make it better."

"That feels much better with the fresh air, but your touch has started another swelling." He winked at her, then looked from her eyes down at his watch. "But back to important matters. It's thirteen twenty. That was likely the relieved lookout squad coming from the top of Feldberg. The timing makes sense."

"It's probably safe to head up the trail a short distance until the start of the big meadows," Rachel said. "From there we can skirt around in the trees. We'll be midway between Feldberg and Schauinsland, more than five kilometres from either lookout post. Within two hours we can be across the saddle and traversing the southern slopes, well out of sight over the shoulders of Feldberg."

"My study of the maps showed a ridge down toward the Swiss bulge across to the north side of the Rhein. Let me dig out the map."

"No need," Rachel replied, "I know the area like the back of my hand. Maria and I had been planning on heading down to the town of Unterhallau. That's where Edom — my husband — my late husband and his family come from. They still have vineyards there. It's just across the border..." She paused to sip more water.

"There's a tongue of forest which comes down a ridge from the high lands between the little German villages and farms. The trails and roads are in the valleys on each side, but the ridge top is untamed. That's the route Edom and I would follow when we used to take the short-cut and sneak across the border to go rambling up on the high ridges of the Schwarzwald."

Her eyes wandered as her mind searched. "At the bottom of the trees is a small road, a rail line and then a line of trees beside a small river, the Wutach. The river is the border. We used to cross on the stauwehr. Downstream of the weir, the water is shallow as it runs through the rocks. We can wade across into Switzerland. Unterhallau is only three kilometres across the hills from there."

"That's the exact route I had planned," he replied. "Even the town of Unterhallau. But the geography leaves few other options, so the Germans will be guarding it closely. We'll have to be careful."

They quenched their thirsts and filled their canteens from the stream. Then shouldering their packs, they walked across the slope to the trail and started up it.

"You lead again, David; I want to watch your bum for a while more. I've never watched a man's bum before, and it's great for my imagination. You should watch too, Mama; it's quite warming."

They skirted a large meadow, remaining in the forest, and though the trees were much shorter and more widely spaced, they offered good cover. They wound slowly upward, contouring around the undulating ground. At two-thirty, they were on their way down, angling off to the left in a gradual descending traverse.

"Wow!" He exclaimed as they broke out of the trees at the edge of a small meadow below them. "The Alps. They're hogging the entire horizon." He looked up to his left and his right, then walked across a few yards to a moss-covered log just in from the edge of the clearing. "Come have a seat. Come look at the Swiss Alps."

They sat on the log and stared at the ragged line of white and dark blue, which seemed to be floating above a paler blue, nearly the shade of the sky. A line of snowfields and glaciers held apart, yet together by the deep blue of the mountain ridges and peaks.

"Edom and I always wondered why the mountains are blue in the distance but brown, grey and green up close."

"It's from the refraction of light through the air," David replied. "The greater the distance, the bluer it appears."

"I can't remember the names of the peaks over there. Edom could name every one of them. Damn you, Kaiser Wilhelm!"

"I know that's Mont Blanc over there on the right, near the end," Maria said. "It's the highest peak in the Alps, a little above 4800 metres." Then pointing almost straight ahead, she continued, "Those three ahead of us are Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger, all around 4000 metres. How high are your mountains in Canada?"

"The highest in the Rockies is Mount Robson, a few metres short of 4000. In the north, there are peaks over 5000 metres, and one, Mount Logan, almost 20,000 feet, over 6000 metres. There are large areas unexplored, particularly in the coastal ranges, and some say there are peaks there higher than 13,000 feet, over 4000 metres."

He stared at the Alps. "Let's sit and take a quiet look around and think where the Germans would set up lookout posts up here, or down below in the valleys. Let our minds wander — be creative."

He looked eye to eye, then continued, "They'll be much more suspicious of people moving on this side of the range, being close to the border. They'll be looking for men fleeing conscription, for deserters, for escaped enemy and prisoners of war, for spies, for saboteurs."

They each contributed: "There are many little villages and settlements in the valleys; their posts there would be impossible to spot. At the edge of every meadow, every field, every pasture. On every prominent spot on every ridge. Atop every rock outcrop on the slopes. Up high trees. The trails will be increasingly unsafe for us the lower we go, with new hiking refuges being built along them. Of course, the fire lookout towers and ones like Roßkopfturm we saw on the way up, but we can easily see those."

"Practically anywhere. That seems the consensus," David said. "We need to be extremely alert, we need to plan every move. We're not out on a pleasure hike, we're trying to stay alive."

He told them of his experience on Tuesday afternoon above the border near Will-am-Rhein, starting the short tale with, "This is not to frighten you. This is so you fully understand the thinking and the actions we might run into."

They were quiet after he finished the story. He looked at his watch and continued, "It's now fourteen fifty. Rachel had a few hours of sleep last night; Maria and I had none. Those short naps on the way up helped, but we're all tired. Mistakes happen when people are tired. Let's move along carefully until we find a suitable place to spend the night. There's a line of bluffs and ledges across there on the second rib; it's a distance away, but it appears to be the first possibility. Let's go across to it; find a stream with a place to camp on one of the ledges."

Maria and Rachel were both silent as they got up and followed David back into the trees and contoured around two shallow cirques toward the rock outcrops. There was a pleasant bench running across the bottom of the rocks, occasionally interrupted by a block fallen from above. At one block, the ramp sloped down temptingly, but wanting to maintain elevation, David sidled around on a narrow ledge on the rock and saw a route continuing more horizontally.

About a hundred yards along, the line of the escarpment made an abrupt turn to the left into a gully, a broad cleft in the cliff. At the back of the gully was a thin waterfall bouncing off the rocks as it tumbled about forty feet and splashed into pools on the horizontal rock slab at the bottom. He held up his hand for the women to stop, then put his finger to his mouth in a shhh sign.

He did a slow, deliberate survey of the scene, examining the tops of the cliffs, combing his eyes through the trees, and looking down the gully. After pausing his breathing to listen more intently, he moved around the corner and took a few steps along a narrow ledge toward the back of the gully then stopped and followed the continuation of a route with his eyes. Satisfied, he turned and headed back to the corner.

With a broad smile on his face, he stuck his head around the edge of the rock. "Ladies, our lodgings for the night have been arranged. Please follow me; I'll show you to your room. Mind your step, it's a very narrow corridor."

"Oh, my God!" Rachel said as she got to the corner and looked into the gully. "Edom and I stumbled onto this place many years ago. We looked for it so often after that, but we were never able to find it again. Those pools of water get warm in the sun. Our baths have been drawn for us, the sun is still on them. I hope you packed lots of soap, Maria; I'm sweaty and as smelly as an old mare in heat."

It was a delicate move around a bulge in the face, but the footing on the narrow ledge was good, as were the handholds above. Then the ledge ramped down slightly as the slab at the back of the gully rose more gradually to meet it. They stepped through the spray, the pelt and the splash of water tumbling from above as they crossed the shallow stream to a broad slab of sandstone. The broken splash of the waterfall through the millennia had carved several pools, mostly shallow, but those closer to the waterfall, rather deeper.

David tried to recall details from the geology lectures at the Alpine Club summer camps in 1913. "It looks as if we're at a junction of a gabbro and a sandstone layer." He looked up and around the tops of the overhanging gabbro faces, up to the top of the waterfall. "I think ours is the only possible approach into here."

He turned his head back down to look for a place to set up a camp, but he was too late.