It was late afternoon before the trampers reached the green alp where Gretel's father and brothers were pasturing their cows.

It was milking time. Franz and his father were milking the big, brown cows near the cabin. Sep was milking his goats. The pigs were eating their supper of skimmed milk, and Barry, the dog, was keeping his eye on them all.

It was Barry who first saw the trampers, and away he bounded to meet them. His bark was very fierce until Gretel called him by name, then he almost wagged his tail off, he was so glad to see her. He was even glad to see the strangers, because they had brought Gretel with them.

Franz and Sep and their father were just as happy as Barry to see their little Gretel and her strange friends from America.

Soon they were all eating supper together, sitting around a rough table in the small cabin. It was a simple supper, but the hungry boys thought they never had eaten a nicer one. There was a long loaf of bread, and a great round cheese with holes all through it, and a dish of wild strawberries, and a pitcher of warm milk.

While they were eating, they suddenly heard the clear, sweet notes of a horn. The sound came from the high mountain above the cabin. In a moment the same notes came more softly from the mountain on the other side of the alp, and again still more softly they came.

"What is that?" cried Joe.

"It is my neighbor, who pastures his cows on the alp above us," said Gretel's father. "He is blowing his great horn to tell us that the sun is just setting behind that snow-covered peak. I must answer him, so he may know that all is well with us."

Then the herdsman took his great horn, which was taller than himself, and went out in front of his cabin. He blew a few long, clear notes, which meant, he said, "Praise ye the Lord." Again and again the same notes came back in echo from the mountain walls, each time more softly.

The snow-covered peaks were no longer white, but glowing red from the rays of the setting sun. Then darkness came on very quickly.

The tired travelers were glad to find a small inn on the alp where they could spend the night. Of course Gretel stayed with her father and brothers in their little cabin.

There were only two rooms in the cabin. The larger room belonged to the cows. They came in here to be milked in stormy weather. In the other room the family cooked and ate and made their cheeses. Their bedroom was a low balcony over one end of this room, and they reached it by climbing up a short ladder.

Next morning the boys were wakened early by Sep calling to them outside of their window.

"Oh, Jack and Joe," he called, "come with me. I have to take my goats up the mountain to their pasture. There is something fine up there that I want to show you."

So Jack and Joe went with Sep and his goats up the rocky mountain side. It was a hard climb, but it was fun.

The little goats could climb anywhere. They went into dangerous places where the cows could not go, and they found many tender bits of grass to eat.

When the boys had climbed very high, Sep crept carefully out on a narrow shelf of rock. He lay face downward and reached far over the edge. The mountain side was very steep below him.

"Watch me, boys!" he cried. "But don't you come too near."

Then, very carefully, he picked a small, furry, white flower which was growing on the steep, rocky wall. He picked another and another of the flowers, until his hand was full of them.

"There now!" he cried. "You know my secret. I have shown you where my edelweiss grows. It grows only in the most dangerous places on the high mountains. I pick a few of the flowers every day, when they are in bloom, to sell to travelers who cross our alp, but you are the only people I have ever brought up here to see them growing."

"Oh, thank you, Sep!" cried Jack. "We'll never, never tell your secret. But please let us pick a few of the flowers ourselves."

So each of the boys carried down the mountain a handful of the proud little flowers which they had picked themselves.

The Overall Boys were real mountain climbers at last, for only mountain climbers ever find and pick the edelweiss.

When the boys reached the cabin, Sep's father was watching a great kettle of milk, over an open fire. He had put more than a hundred quarts of milk into the copper kettle, with a little rennet to make it turn into curd.

Herdsmen make their rennet by soaking a calf's stomach in water or in whey; they then save this liquid to use in making their cheeses.

Sep's father stirred and watched the milk in his great copper kettle until the curd began to form. He then swung the kettle away from the fire, and put both bare arms into the warm milk. He worked the cheese into one large lump, and lifted it out on a great tray, where he worked it still more to squeeze out the milk.

It was then put into a round, wooden press a few days. Each day the press was opened and the cheese rubbed with salt.

When it was just right, it would be taken out and laid on a shelf in the small cheese house, where all the cheeses were kept until they could be carried down the mountain and sold. But they were not really good to eat until they were at least six months old.

Sep's father made one of these cheeses every day, and he made cheeses from his goats' milk, too. He and his boys lived a busy life on the mountain. They had no time to be lonesome.

The Overall Boys told Franz and Sep how they often had Swiss cheese for dinner in America. They said when they got home again they should certainly tell their grocer just how his big Swiss cheeses were made.