"Ah, we are getting on! How fearfully cold! Lieverle, what is the matter?
what have you found now?"
Unfortunately Fox and Rappel were beginning to tire; they sank deeper in
the snow and no longer neighed joyfully.
And added to this the endless mazes of the Black Forest wearied us too.
The old woman affected this solitary region greatly; here she had trotted
round a deserted charcoal-burner's hut; farther on she had torn out the
roots that projected from a moss-grown rock; there she had sat at the
foot of a tree, and that very recently--not more than two hours since,
for the track was quite fresh--and our hope and our ardour rose together.
But the daylight was slowly fading away!
Very strangely, ever since our departure from Nideck we had met neither
wood-cutters, nor charcoal-burners, nor timber-carriers. At this season
the silence and solitude of the Black Forest is as deep as that of the
North-American steppes.
At five o'clock it was almost dark. Sperver halted and said--
"Fritz, my lad, we have started a couple of hours too late. The she-wolf
has had too long a start. In ten minutes it will be as dark as a dungeon.
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