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"What have you done with it, Moni? Give it to me. Did you find it?" "No, Jorgli from Kublis found it." Then Paula wanted to know who he was and where he lived, and to send some one to Kublis at once to get the cross. "I will go as fast as I can, and if he still has it I will bring it to you," said Moni. "If he still has it?" said Paula. "Why shouldn't he still have it?
At first he couldn't speak a word; but now he broke out and complained aloud over the little kid: "No, no, that shall not be done, Maggerli, it shall not be done. They shall not slay you, I can't bear that. Oh, I would rather die with you; no, that cannot be!" "Don't do so," said Jorgli, angrily, and pulled Moni up, for in his grief he had thrown himself face down on the ground.
"I didn't suppose you came up so high with the goats," said Jorgli. "To be sure I do," replied Moni, "but not always; usually I stay by the Pulpit-rock and around there. Why have you come up here?" "To make you a visit," was the reply. "I have something to tell you. Besides, I have two goats here, that I am bringing to the landlord at the Baths.
But before Moni could lie down to sleep, he had to look into the shed once more, to see if it were really possible that the little kid was lying out there and belonged to him. Jorgli received the ten francs according to the agreement, but he was not allowed to escape from the affair so easily as that.
So Jorgli was not at all happy; and a hundred times he thought: "If only I had given back that cross immediately! I will never in my whole life keep anything else that doesn't belong to me." But Moni never ceased singing and yodeling, the whole summer long, for there was hardly another human being in the world as happy as he was up there with his goats.
"You needn't think I would do any such thing to the little kid!" said Moni quite angrily and drew Maggerli to him and held her fast, as if to protect her from any such treatment. "You really won't have to take care of that one much longer," began Jorgli again. "It won't come up here many times more." "What? What? What did you say, Jorgli?" demanded Moni. "Bah, don't you know about it?
Moni was very much surprised at this, for Jorgli had become the goat-boy of Kublis at the same time he had been made goat-boy of Fideris, and Moni did not understand how Jorgli could give it up without a single murmur. Meanwhile the goat-boys and their flocks had reached the Pulpit-rock. Moni brought out bread and a small piece of dried meat and invited Jorgli to share his midday meal.
Out with it!" And if he assured them he had nothing and knew nothing about it, they would all exclaim: "We know you already!" and "You can't fool us!" So Jorgli had to endure the most menacing attacks continually, and had hardly a moment's peace any more, for if he saw any one approaching him, he at once thought he was coming to ask if he had found this or that.
Meanwhile Moni coming down from above, and another goat-boy coming up from below, met at the same spot and looked at each other in astonishment. But they were well acquainted, and after the first surprise greeted each other cordially. It was Jorgli from Kublis. Half the morning he had been looking in vain for Moni and now he met him up here, where he had not expected to find him.
"What is it?" asked Moni, when it sparkled again, lighted up by a sunbeam. "Guess!" "A ring?" "No, but something like that." "Who gave it to you?" "Gave it to me? Nobody. I found it myself." "Then it does not belong to you, Jorgli." "Why not? I didn't take it from anybody. I almost stepped on it with my foot, then it would have been broken; so I can just as well keep it." "Where did you find it?"
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