is
body were all one great throbbing heart. His brothers, who lay in the
same chamber with him, were sound asleep; very soon his father and
mother snored also, on the other side of the wall. Findelkind was alone
wide awake, watching the big white moon sail past his little casement,
and hearing Katte bleat.

Where were her poor twin lambs?

The night was bitterly cold, for it was already far on in autumn; the
rivers had swollen and flooded many fields, the snow for the last week
had fallen quite low down on the mountainsides.

Even if still living, the little lambs would die, out on such a night
without the mother or food and shelter of any sort. Findelkind, whose
vivid brain always saw everything that he imagined as if it were being
acted before his eyes, in fancy saw his two dear lambs floating dead
down the swollen tide, entangled in rushes on the flooded shore, or
fallen with broken limbs upon a crest of rocks. He saw them so plainly
that scarcely could he hold back his breath from screaming aloud in the
still night and answering the mourning wail of the desolate mother.

At last he could bear it no longer: his head burned, and his
brain seemed whirling round; at a bound he leaped out of bed quite
noiselessly, slid into his sheepskins, and stole out as he had done the
night before, hardly knowing what he did. Poor Katte was mourning in
the wooden shed with the other sheep, and the wail of her sorrow sounded
sadly across the loud roar of the rushing river.

The moon was still high.

Above, against the sky, black and awful with clouds floating over its
summit, was the great Martinswand.

Findelkind this time called the big dog Waldmar to him, and, with the
dog beside him, went once more out into the cold and the gloom, whilst
his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, wore sleeping, and poor
childless Katte alone was awake.

He looked up at the mountain and then across the water-swept meadows to
the river. He was in doubt which way to take. Then he thought that in
all likelihood the lambs would have been seen if they had wandered the
river way, and even little Stefan would have had too much sense to let
them go there. So he crossed the road and began to climb Martinswand.

With the instinct of the born mountaineer, he had brought out his
crampons with him, and had now fastened them on his feet; he knew every
part and ridge of the mountains, and had more than once climbed over to
that very spot where Ka