One afternoon we were told that the boots were made, that Anton had brought the flour from the mill, that two hundred loaves of rye bread were baked, and, the weather being sufficiently fine and all the preparations being completed, the cattle would now start for the Olm.  First, Anton and the Senner Franz set off at four o’clock in the afternoon, with the calves in advance, the young things being unable to keep up with the cattle.  Then a leiterwagen which had been drawn into the lower corridor and filled with sacks of flour, meal, salt and the two hundred loaves, was driven by the Hofbauer as far as Taufers, whence the supplies for the Alpine residents would be borne on men’s backs up to the huts.

In the evening Jakob came into the grand old sitting-room to bid us good-bye.  He appeared in his shirt-sleeves and the indispensable white apron, and with the utmost self-possession and refinement of manner he presented us with a little bouquet of edelweiss, promising to send us down a larger supply by his brother.  We talked with him about the Olm, and found him enthusiastic on the subject, his one regret being that, as he must return for several weeks of drilling on August 22d, his stay there this summer would be greatly curtailed.  The Olm was very extensive, lying on a mountain-platform which was only bare of snow for about three months in the year.  When, however, the snow was off, the flowers came up by thousands, the grass sprang up by magic, all the mountains were filled with the rushing and roaring sound of waters, which came down in foaming cascades, often of wonderful beauty, amongst the rocks and the pine woods which clothed the steeper mountain-sides.  Nor was the life at all solitary, for various farmers were sending up their cattle to other Olms about the same time, so that no one was without neighbors, although they might be at a considerable distance apart.

Jakob spoke on until we became wild to go up to the Olm too.  “Could we go thither,” we asked, “and pay him a visit?”

“That we could,” he replied, “if we did not mind sleeping in the hay.  Only we had better wait for settled weather in August.”

There was now no talk of our leaving the Hof at St. Jakobi.  The Hofbauer had declared that the house was at our disposal until Martinmas—­longer if we wanted it.  He also fell into the scheme of our visiting his Olm, where he intimated his desire to be host, saying that all the dairy produce would be at our service.

In the night, exactly at one o’clock, Jakob and Jodokus started:  we heard them go, the cattle-bells ringing and the “Leben Sie wohl!” “Behuet Euch Gott!” shouted lovingly after them from the open door and the lower windows of the silent old mansion.  Six and twenty head of cattle:  the goats, pigs and sheep were to follow later.  It was a calm and beautiful night, the three-quarters moon just dropping behind the mountains, and the stars shining out brightly from the dark cloudless sky.