"Your hand on it!" and Jordie held out his own hand, for thus a promise was made inviolable.
Jordie was very glad that he was now safe with his treasure; but as Moni had grown so quiet, and as he had a longer way home than Moni, he thought it best to start on. He took leave of Moni and whistled to his two goats, which had meanwhile joined Moni's grazing flock,—not without various buttings and other doubtful encounters, however; for the goats of Fideris had never heard that one must be polite to company, and the goats of Kueblis did not know that when one is on a visit it is not proper to pick out the best feeding for oneself and push every one else away from it. When Jordie was halfway down the mountain Moni, too, set out with his flock, but he was very quiet and gave forth not a note of song or whistle all the way home.
CHAPTER IV
MONI CANNOT SING
The next morning Moni came to the hotel as quiet and downcast as he had been the evening before. He came silently, took away the landlord's goats, and then started on his upward journey, without ever opening his lips for a song or a yodel; he hung his head and looked as though he were afraid of something. Now and then he cast a furtive glance around to see if some one was not following him.
Moni could not be happy any more; he could hardly tell why. He felt that he ought to be glad because he had saved little Meggy, and he tried to sing, but he could not. The sun happened to be clouded that day; he thought that when the sky cleared he would feel quite different, and would be happy again. When he got up on the mountain it began to rain hard. Soon the rain came down in torrents and he took refuge under the Rain Rock.