I was once in a country where the mountain troops on their frontier were said to be of a wonderfully efficient kind, but nobody knew much about their organisation or equipment or their methods of working, so I was sent to see if I could find out anything about them, I got in amongst the mountains at the time when their annual manoeuvres were going on, and I found numbers of troops quartered in the valleys and billeted in all the villages.  But these all appeared to be the ordinary type of troops, infantry, artillery of the line, etc.  The artillery were provided with sledges by which the men could pull the guns up the mountain sides with ropes, and the infantry were supplied with alpenstocks to help them in getting over the bad ground.  For some days I watched the manoeuvres, but saw nothing very striking to report.

Then one evening in passing through a village where they were billeted I saw a new kind of soldier coming along with three pack mules.  He evidently belonged to those mountain forces of which, so far, I had seen nothing.  I got into conversation with him, and found that he had come down from the higher ranges in order to get supplies for his company which was high up among the snow peaks, and entirely out of reach of the troops manoeuvring on the lower slopes.

He incidentally told me that the force to which he belonged was a very large one, composed of artillery and infantry, and that they were searching amongst the glaciers and the snows for another force which was coming as an enemy against them, and they hoped to come into contact with them probably the very next day.  He then roughly indicated to me the position in which his own force was bivouacking that night, on the side of a high peak called the “Wolf’s Tooth.”

By condoling with him on the difficult job he would have to get through, and suggesting impossible roads by which he could climb, he eventually let out to me exactly the line which the path took, and I recognised that it would be possible to arrive there during the night without being seen.

So after dark, when the innkeeper thought I was safely in bed, I quietly made my way up the mountain side to where the “Wolf’s Tooth” stood up against the starry sky as a splendid landmark to guide me.  There was no difficulty in passing through the village with its groups of soldiers strolling about off duty, but on the roads leading out of it many sentries were posted, and I feared that they would scarcely let me pass without inquiring as to who I was and where I was going.

So I spent a considerable time in trying to evade these, and was at last fortunate in discovering a storm drain leading between high walls up a steep bank into an orchard, through which I was able to slip away unseen by the sentries guarding the front of the village.  I climbed up by such paths and goat tracks as I could find leading in the direction desired.  I failed to strike the mule path indicated by my friend the driver, but with the peak of the Wolf’s Tooth outlined above me against the stars, I felt that I could not go far wrong—­and so it proved in the event.