Then the three men, the father and the two sons, tried to open the door, but it resisted their efforts.  From the empty cow-stall they took a beam to serve as a battering-ram and hurled it against the door with all their might.  The wood gave way and the boards flew into splinters.  Then the house was shaken by a loud voice, and inside, behind the side board which was overturned, they saw a man standing upright, with his hair falling on his shoulders and a beard descending to his breast, with shining eyes, and nothing but rags to cover him.  They did not recognize him, but Louise Hauser exclaimed: 

“It is Ulrich, mother.”  And her mother declared that it was Ulrich, although his hair was white.

He allowed them to go up to him and to touch him, but he did not reply to any of their questions, and they were obliged to take him to Loeche, where the doctors found that he was mad, and nobody ever found out what had become of his companion.

Little Louise Hauser nearly died that summer of decline, which the physicians attributed to the cold air of the mountains.