It does not perhaps seem very hard labor to hunt about by a dusky light upon a desolate mountain-side, but when the snow is falling fast, when the light is only a small circle, wavering yellowish on the white, when around is a wilderness of loose stones and yawning clefts, when the air is ice and the hour is past midnight, the task is not a light one for a man; and Findelkind was a child, like that Findelkind that was in heaven. Long, very long, was his search: he grew hot and forgot all fear, except a spasm of terror lest his light should burn low and die out. The bleating had quite ceased now, and there was not even a sigh to guide him; but he knew that near him the lambs must be, and he did not waver nor despair. He did not pray--praying in the morning had been no use--but he trusted in God, and he labored hard, toiling to and fro, seeking in every nook and behind each stone, and straining every muscle and nerve, till the sweat rolled in a briny dew off his forehead and his curls dripped with wet. At last, with a scream of joy, he touched some soft, close wool that gleamed white as the white snow. He knelt down on the ground and peered behind the stone by the full light of his lantern: there lay the little lambs--two little brothers, twin brothers, huddled close together, asleep. Asleep? He was sure they were asleep, for they were so silent and still. He bowed over them and kissed them, and laughed and cried, and kissed them again. Then a sudden horror smote him: they were so very still. There they lay, cuddled close, one on another, one little white head on each little white body, drawn closer than ever together to try and get warm. He called to them; he touched them; then he caught them up in his arms, and kissed them again and again and again. Alas! they were frozen and dead. Never again would they leap in the long green grass, and frisk with one another, and lie happy by Katte's side: they had died calling for their mother, and in the long, cold, cruel night only Death had answered. Findelkind did not weep nor scream nor tremble: his heart seemed frozen, like the dead lambs. It was he who had killed them. He rose up and gathered them in his arms, and cuddled them in the skirts of his sheepskin tunic, and cast his staff away that he might carry them; and so, thus burdened with their weight, set his face to the snow and the wind once more and began his downward way. Once a great sob shook him: that was all. Now he had no fear. The night might have been noonday, the snowstorm might have been summer, for aught that he knew or cared.