in a coach! But one cannot have
all one desires. I have not been able to do so, neither with barking
nor with yawning."

That was Ajola's speech, and Rudy seized him by the neck and kissed
him on his moist mouth, and then he took the cat in his arms, but she
was angry at it.

"You are getting too strong for me, and I will not use my claws
against you! Just climb over the mountains, I taught you to climb!
Never think that you will fall, then you are secure!"

Then the cat ran away, without letting Rudy see how her grief shone
out of her eye.

The hens ran about the floor; one had lost her tail; a traveller, who
wished to be a hunter, had shot it off, because the creature had taken
the hen for a bird of prey!

"Rudy is going over the mountain!" said one hen. "He is always in a
hurry," said the other, "and I do not care for leave-takings!" and so
they both tripped away.

And the goats, too, said farewell and cried: "Mit, mit, mah!" and that
was so sad.

There were two nimble guides in the neighbourhood, and they were about
to cross the mountains; they were to descend to the other side of the
Gemmi, and Rudy followed them on foot. This was a severe march for
such a little chap, but he had strength and courage, and felt not
fatigue.

The swallows accompanied them a part of the way. They sang: "We and
you! You and us!" The road went over the rapid Luetschine, which
rushes forth from the black clefts of the glacier of Grindelwald, in
many little streams. The fallen timber and the quarry-stones serve as
bridges; they pass the alder-bush and descend the mountain where the
glacier has detached itself from the mountain side; they cross over
the glacier, over the blocks of ice, and go around them. Rudy was
obliged to creep a little, to walk a little, his eyes sparkled with
delight, and he trod as firmly with his iron-shod mountain shoes, as
though he wished to leave his foot-prints where he had stepped. The
black mud which the mountain stream had poured upon the glacier gave
it a calcined appearance, but the bluish-green, glassy ice still shone
through it. They were obliged to go around the little ponds which
were dammed up by blocks of ice; during these wanderings they came too
near a large stone, which lay tottering on the brink of a crevice in
the ice. The stone lost its equilibrium, it fell, rolled and the echo
resounded from the deep hollow paths of the glacier.

Up, ever up; the glacier stretched itself on high--