"There!" cried Ulrich, pointing to the snow covered roof of a wooden hut, that stood close before them in a clearing on the edge of the forest.
Every face brightened, but Marx shook his head doubtfully, muttering: "No smoke, no barking; the place is empty.

Jorg has gone.

At Whitsuntide--how many years ago is it ?--the boys left to act as raftsmen, but then he stayed here." Reckoning time was not the charcoal-burner's strong point; and the empty hut, the dreary open window-casements in the mouldering wooden walls, the holes in the roof, through which a quantity of snow had drifted into the only room in the deserted house, indicated that no human being had sought shelter here for many a winter.
Old Rahel uttered a fresh wail of grief, when she saw this shelter; but after the men had removed the snow as well as they could, and covered the holes in the roof with pine-branches; when Adam had lighted a fire, and the sacks and coverlets were brought in from the sledge, and laid on a dry spot to furnish seats for the women, fresh courage entered their hearts, and Rahel, unasked, dragged herself to the hearth, and set the snow-filled pot on the fire.
"The nag must have two hours' rest," Marx said, "then they could push on and reach the miller in the ravine before night.

There they would find kind friends, for Jacklein had been with him among the 'peasants.'" The snow-water boiled, the doctor and his wife rested, Ulrich and Ruth brought wood, which the smith had split, to the fire to dry, when suddenly a terrible cry of grief rang outside of the hut.
Costa hastily rose, the children followed, and old Rahel, whimpering, drew the upper kerchief on her head over her face.
The little horse, its tiny legs stretched far apart, was lying in the snow by the sledge.

Beside it knelt Marx, holding the clumsy head on his knee, and blowing with his crooked mouth into the animal's nostrils.