e boulders before we reached it.

Seeing us approaching, good old Franz, who had gone forward in
advance, fastened on his apron and fried marvelous monograms and
circles of cream batter, of which we, the guests, were soon partaking
in the best room, otherwise the store-room and dairy. The hut was
divided into two compartments, both entered by adjoining doors from
the outside. Seated on milking-stools in somewhat dangerous proximity
to pans of rich cream, balls of butter and cheeses, the salt and
meal-bin served as our dining table. In the kitchen, Franz, resting
from his successful culinary labors, sat with Moidel and Jakob by the
hearth, where huge blocks of stone kept the fire in compass, the smoke
curling out of the door, and enjoyed in return some of our ham, wine
and almond cake.

[Illustration: HAPPY SOULS IN PARADISE.]

The hut was close quarters, even for the two ordinary inmates: there
were, however, innumerable contrivances for stowing away all kinds of
useful things, besides notches in the thick wooden partition for hands
and feet when at night they crept to their burrow of hay under the
low eaves. Everything with the exception of the old stone floor was
scrupulously clean: without, the pigs dabbled in the mire between
the rugged rocks, and nettles grew, but beyond, mountains, woods and
illimitable space were spread in uninterrupted fullness.

Resting after dinner at a little distance from the huts, we learned
from Jakob, who was full of excitement on the subject, that shortly
after we left the inn at Rein the preceding evening a gentleman
from Bohemia arrived. He immediately communicated to the wirth his
intention of ascending one of the three great mountains rising from
the Bachernthal, either the Hoch Gall (11,283 feet high), the Wild
Gall or the Schnebige Nock, both some thousand feet lower, but perhaps
even more attractive, as still possessing the charm of untrodden
summits. The wirth consequently sent for a fine, clever young fellow,
Johann Ausserkofer, a friend of Jakob's, and whose home we had passed
on the previous night before reaching the Eder Olm. He had ascended
the Hoch Gall with two gentlemen in the August of the former year,
and now recommended an attempt at the still virgin Wild Gall. The
arrangement being speedily made, for extra help and security Johann
fetched his younger brother, Josef, as a companion, and the little
party started by torchlight at two o'clock in the morning.

Jakob