Bordering the hilly pathway through the pines, were many mounds with crosses of wood—­tombs of French soldiers topped with little tricolored flags.  Upon these moss-covered graves were the old kepis of the gunners.  The ferocious wood-chopper, in destroying this woods, had also blindly demolished many of the ants swarming around the trunks.

Don Marcelo was wearing leggings, a broad hat, and on his shoulders, a fine poncho arranged like a shawl—­garments which recalled his far-distant life on the ranch.  Behind him came Lacour trying to preserve his senatorial dignity in spite of his gasps and puffs of fatigue.  He also was wearing high boots and a soft hat, but he had kept to his solemn frock-coat in order not to abandon entirely his parliamentary uniform.  Before them marched two captains as guides.

They were on a mountain occupied by the French artillery, and were climbing to the top where were hidden cannons and cannons, forming a line some miles in length.  The German artillery had caused the woodland ruin around the visitors, in their return of the French fire.  The circular pools were the hollows dug by the German shells in the limy, non-porous soil which preserved all the runnels of rain.

The visiting party had left their automobile at the foot of the mountain.  One of the officers, a former artilleryman, explained this precaution to them.  It was necessary to climb this roadway very cautiously.  They were within reach of the enemy, and an automobile might attract the attention of their gunners.

“A little fatiguing, this climb,” he continued.  “Courage, Senator Lacour! . . .  We are almost there.”

They began to meet artillerymen, many of them not in uniform but wearing the military kepis.  They looked like workmen from a metal factory, foundrymen with jackets and pantaloons of corduroy.  Their arms were bare, and some had put on wooden shoes in order to get over the mud with greater security.  They were former iron laborers, mobilized into the artillery reserves.  Their sergeants had been factory overseers, and many of them officials, engineers and proprietors of big workshops.

Suddenly the excursionists stumbled upon the iron inmates of the woods.  When these spoke, the earth trembled, the air shuddered, and the native inhabitants of the forest, the crows, rabbits, butterflies and ants, fled in terrified flight, trying to hide themselves from the fearful convulsion which seemed to be bringing the world to an end.  Just at present, the bellowing monsters were silent, so that they came upon them unexpectedly.  Something was sticking up out of the greenery like a gray beam; at other times, this apparition would emerge from a conglomeration of dry trunks.  Around this obstacle was cleared ground occupied by men who lived, slept and worked about this huge manufactory on wheels.

The senator, who had written verse in his youth and composed oratorical poetry when dedicating various monuments in his district, saw in these solitary men on the mountain side, blackened by the sun and smoke, with naked breasts and bare arms, a species of priests dedicated to the service of a fatal divinity that was receiving from their hands offerings of enormous explosive capsules, hurling them forth in thunderclaps.