The fact of the matter was that Eleseus had found a stump of coloured pencil the engineer had left behind, and started to run after him and give it back, but the big men with their long strides were already far up in the forest. Eleseus stopped. The idea occurred to him that he might keep the pencil--if only he could! He hunted out little Sivert, so that they might at least be two to share the guilt, and the pair of them had crept in under the floor with their find. Oh, that stump of pencil--it was an event in their lives, a wonder! They found shavings and covered them all over with signs; the pencil, they discovered, made blue marks with one end and red with the other, and they took it in turns to use. When their father called out so loudly and insistently, Eleseus whispered: "They've come back for the pencil!" All their joy was dashed in a moment, swept out of their minds at a touch, and their little hearts began beating and thumping terribly. The brothers crept forth. Eleseus held out the pencil at arm's length; here it was, they had not broken it; only wished they had never seen the thing. No engineer was to be seen. Their hearts settled to a quieter beat; it was heavenly to be rid of that dreadful tension. "There was a woman here yesterday," said their father. "Yes." "The woman from the place down below. Did you see her go?" "Yes." "Had she a goat with her?" "No," said the boys. "A goat?" "Didn't she have a goat with her when she left?" "No. What goat?" Isak wondered and wondered. In the evening when the animals came home, he counted the goats once over--there were sixteen. He counted them once more, counted them five times. There were sixteen. None missing. Isak breathed again. But what did it all mean? Oline, miserable creature, couldn't she count as far as sixteen? He asked her angrily: "What's all this nonsense? there _are_ sixteen goats." "Are there sixteen?" she asked innocently. "Ay." "Ay, well, then." "A nice one to count, you are." Oline answered quietly, in an injured tone, "Since all the goats are there, why, then, thank Heaven, you can't say Oline's been eating them up. And well for her, poor thing." Oline had taken him in completely with her trickery; he was content, imagining all was well. It did not occur to him, for instance, to count the sheep. He did not trouble about further counting of the stock at all. After all, Oline was not as bad as she might have been; she kept house for him after a fashion, and looked to his cattle; she was merely a fool, and that was worst for herself. Let her stay, let her live--she was not worth troubling about. But it was a grey and joyless thing to be Isak, as life was now.