"Well, then, do whatever you have a mind to," said his father. "I must not lose any more time, or it will be too late before I get back. Farewell, my boy, and see that you don't play any roguish tricks."
With these words the peasant took his alpenstock, as the long iron-pointed stick is named which is used for crossing the ice-fields, and set forth.
"Good-by, my dear father," said the boy, gazing after him until a turn in the road hid him from view. "It is better that you should go away quietly and without anxiety. If I had told you what I am going to do, you would have been vexed and nervous, and have tried to turn me from it. But now I shall have nothing to hinder me, and I can set to work in earnest. I will milk the goats first, though, that the poor animals may not suffer till I get back."
Obedient to his loud call, the goats came frisking along; and after having relieved them of their milk, Walter drank some, ate a little black bread to it, and then put the rest of the milk in a flat pan, which he set carefully in the cool cellar. When the goats had returned to the hills, and were clambering from crag to crag in search of grass and herbage, Walter slung a light hunting bag across his shoulder, stuck a small axe with a short handle into his belt, and a knife into his pocket, filled a bottle with goat's milk, and then cut off a large hunch of bread and placed it with the bottle in his bag. He then selected a stout alpenstock and tried it carefully, to see if the iron point was sharp and strong. When these preparations were made, he looked for a piece of thin strong cord, such as the chamois-hunters take with them on their dangerous Alpine journeys, put it into his bag beside the bread and milk, and quitted the cottage, the door of which he bolted on the outside.
The cottage was about half an hour's walk from the inn on the road from Meyringen to Grindelwald, and thither the stout-hearted youth turned his steps. The sun was still low in the east when he arrived, for it was early in the morning; but a number of horses and mules stood at the door of the inn waiting for their riders. Several guides were loitering about, ready to conduct travellers either to the steep heights lying above the village, down to the beautiful water-falls of the Reichenbach, or to the village of Meyringen.
"Well, Watty Hirzel," said one of the guides in answer to the boy's salute, "I suppose you want to earn a couple of francs to-day, as you have come armed with alpenstock and game bag? You couldn't have chosen a better day. Every room in the inn is full, and you will easily get somebody to take to the glaciers or anywhere else."
"No, no, Mohrle," replied the boy; "I haven't come to take your trade away from you; I only want to speak to Mr. Seymour, the gentleman from Scotland who has been staying here for about a month. He hasn't left yet, I hope?"
"No; there he is at the window," said the guide. "But you won't be able to earn anything from him, for he knows all the roads of the Oberland as well as any of us. What do you want to speak to him about?"
"You will find that out in the evening, perhaps, when you come back," replied Walter. "It is a secret at present."
"Aha! I understand. You have discovered the track of a chamois, and are going to take the gentleman to see if he can get a shot at it. He seems quite mad upon hunting, and I dare say you will get a five-franc piece if you help him."