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