THE OESTER BEKG. 277 



%t And no accident happened ?" I asked. 



" No, all went on well ; however we were obliged to 

 leave some of the party behind, one at the ridge and 

 three at the ice ; they would not venture, and waited till 

 we came back. Luckily we had a very fine day ; the 

 snow was quite hard in the morning, but later it grew 

 much softer." 



" But, Neuner, the other day when I was at the Am- 

 mergau, I heard that an idiot who wanders about there 

 had been up and alone ; is it true ?" 



" Yes, quite true : he has always had a passion for 

 ascending mountains, and sometimes he goes up one, 

 sometimes another. Once he came home and told every- 

 body he had been on the Zug Spitz. They all laughed 

 at him of course, for no one believed it. This, it seems, 

 hurt the poor fellow very much ; so off he set, and after 

 being absent several days, came home again and told the 

 people he had been up the Zug Spitz, and that if they 

 looked they would see a pole at the top. No one be- 

 lieved the tale now more than before ; yet when they 

 looked with their glasses, there sure enough was the pole 

 stuck on the very highest point." 



" Yes," I said, " I have seen the pole : but how get 

 it up there ? And then, to find his way quite alone ! 

 Why, it's almost incredible." 



"But quite true," replied Neuner, "for there was no 

 pole there before; besides he described everything ex- 

 actly as it is. The most extraordinary part of the story 

 is that he went up barefoot, — the second time at least, 

 and the time before he slept on the mountain. That he 

 was not frozen to death is quite a miracle." 



" Did he tell where he got the pole, and how he ma- 

 naged to carry it ?" 



" Oh yes," said Neuner, " we know about that. The 



