The clear blue sky was fast
showing the stars, and into the evening stillness echoed the loud
wide jodeln, cast back from the other side of the ravine. Ebbo tried
to raise his voice, but broke down in the shout, and, choked with
agitation, said, "Let me go, mother. None know his haunts as I do!"
"Hark!" she said, only grasping him tighter.
Thinner, shriller, clearer came a far-away cry from the heights, and
Ebbo thrilled from head to foot, then sent up another pealing
mountain shout, responded to by a jodel so pitched as to be plainly
not an echo. "Towards the Red Eyrie," said Hans.
"He will have been to the Ptarmigan's Pool," said Ebbo, sending up
his voice again, in hopes that the answer would sound less distant;
but, instead of this, its intonations conveyed, to these adepts in
mountain language, that Friedel stood in need of help.
"Depend upon it," said the startled Ebbo, "that he has got up amongst
those rocks where the dead chamois rolled down last summer; then, as
Christina uttered a faint cry of terror, Heinz added, "Fear not,
lady, those are not the jodeln of one who has met with a hurt.
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