istant. We changed, therefore, the object of our excursion,
determining to visit the highest Olm of the district, Ober Kofel.
Turning to the left, we pursued the moorland plateau until in half
an hour we had reached a solitary white cabin. The door was firmly
closed, but a pile of fire-wood and a rake, evidently flung recently
down, were sufficient signs of habitation. A more lonely scene could
not well be conceived. No trees nor flowers, only some yellow thistles
growing by the side of a murmuring brook, which had persistently gone
rushing on until it had worn the pebbles in its bed flat and thin.
Tawny, dun-colored mountains rose behind, but before the hut the
_traet_ or open space, covered with the greenest turf, extended to
a platform of rocks, where the glossy shrubs of the mountain
rhododendron grew, presenting a scene well worth the climb. The view
outward embraced the deep wooded gorge of the Giessbach, revealing far
beyond the black, sinuous lines of distant mountains, cutting across
the evening horizon. Black-brown crags some eight thousand feet high,
peaked with snow, rose to the right; but the great snow spectacle was
to the left. There the proud crests of the Hoch Gall, Wild Gall and
Schnebige Nock rose out of a vast white glittering amphitheatre, a
peculiar, bare, conical rock standing like an Alpine sphinx strangely
forth from this desert of snow.

We sat on our verdant patch enjoying the wild, grand scenery, the wind
playing around us in concert with a little calf which had just been
promoted to a bell. At length the figure of a tall young man flitted
in front of a distant cross, and advancing toward us proved to be the
solitary senner of Ober Kofel. As he was the lord of the domain, and
moreover acquainted with Moidel, it was not many minutes ere he sat
on the grass before us. After giving us a welcome, he began talking
to Moidel about the military exercises which were to begin again this
week.

"The Ausserkofers," he said, "went down for the drilling immediately
after their ascent of the Wild Gall: I am glad I was not drawn."

Then Moidel communicated to him that Jakob must leave on the morrow
for drill, and that Tilemaker Martin, Carpenter Barthel's son, would
arrive in the morning to take his place as herdsman.

The party now dropped into a dignified silence, which might have
lasted as long as we had remained had it not appeared pleasanter to
keep the senner intent on a story, rather than on each