But the lad was hardly content with this long silence, and touched the arm of the little boy.
“There!” he said in his rude patois; “there is the place—look! That is the house where the gracious lords and ladies are going.”
Squib started into keen interest now. He had realized from the first moment that this valley was the right one, but he had not had time to think of the chalet itself in his joy at the surroundings.
“Where?” he asked eagerly.
The lad pointed again, and Squib then saw about a mile farther on, and standing upon a little eminence of its own, with a belt of whispering pines behind it, a chalet such as a wealthy man may build for himself as a summer residence amongst the mountains, with the wide-peaked roof, great overhanging eaves, light wooden exterior staircase, and all those accessories in the way of balconies and so forth which tend to make residence in such houses so delightful during the brief but hot summer season of mountain regions.
With a cry of delight and rapture, Squib sprang forward. He had walked far already, but was not in the least tired. He saw before him the home of his dreams, where Lisa was awaiting him, and without thinking of pausing for the rest of the party to come up, he rushed helter-skelter along the narrow mule path, with Czar tearing along beside him, bounding on ahead in his excitement (caught from the child), and then rushing back to see that all was well, and giving vent to a series of deep bays that awoke the echoes in the silent valley.
That sound was heard by a pair of listening ears within the walls of the chalet. As Squib ran breathlessly onwards, he was aware that something human in a fluttering dress, and with something white about the head, was coming rapidly out towards him. In a few minutes, with a rapturous cry, the warm-hearted little fellow had flung himself into the outstretched arms of his ex-nurse.
“Lisa! Lisa! Lisa!”
“Liebchen! mein Liebchen!”
As for Czar, he was as excited as anybody, and he remembered Lisa as well as his little master. His great black muzzle was thrust between the pair, and faithful Lisa, with a sound between laughing and weeping, threw her arms about the great dog’s neck and kissed him between the eyes.