"This is where we'll camp for the night," said Nicolaia, "now that we have all the sheep together." As he spoke, he unpacked the supper of cold meat, onions, and mamaliga that they had brought with them. They also helped themselves to a drink of sheep's milk, which is richer and thicker than cow's and of quite a different flavor.
The sun was already low, and when it sank from sight, darkness followed very soon. Quickly wrapping themselves in their mantles, the boys lay down beside their sheep. So strenuous had the day been, that hardly had they exchanged a few sentences than both were fast asleep.
The next day, after an early breakfast, they were again on their way. The scenery around was grandly wild. Enormous birch and oak-trees towered on both sides of the narrow path, while lime-trees gave forth the honeyed sweetness of their blossoms. Here and there a precipice would yawn on one side of the pathway. No homes of any kind were to be seen.
The afternoon was far advanced when they reached another valley which was to form their headquarters for the summer. Several of the shepherds who shared this section noted their arrival and sent a welcome to them on their boutchoums, long pipes of cherry wood which can be heard for a great distance. In the Middle Ages, Roumanians used the boutchoums to proclaim war to the troops.
Nicolaia at once led Jonitza to a sort of cave formed of large, loose stones. "This," he said, "is the store-house of six or eight of us who herd in this vicinity."
The next morning the work began in earnest. Some of it was splendid training. Each day Nicolaia and Jonitza had to creep along the crags with the flocks. Sometimes the footing was very insecure, so it was no wonder that at the end of the first day Jonitza was covered with bruises from his many falls. "I'm as stiff as a board, too," he confided to Nicolaia, as they lay down near each other to sleep. But, by the end of the week, the stiffness was entirely gone, and Jonitza could manage to keep his footing on the rocks even better than Nicolaia. By that time, too, he had learned the call that would make the sheep clinging to the steep mountainsides stop eating, look up, and then come scrambling to him.
The donkey had been let loose as soon as the valley was reached and got into all kinds of scrapes from his dislike to being alone. Sometimes when he found that he couldn't follow the sheep, he would stand on a bowlder and bray loudly as if proclaiming to an unsympathetic world his loneliness.
Sometimes the report would spread that wild animals had been seen prowling near. This meant extra watchfulness on the part of the shepherds. But whether there was reason for any especial alarm or not, every night each shepherd wrapped himself in his sheepskin or woolen mantle and lay down by his flock ready to spring up at the least sign of danger.