Bastian was a Saint Bernard, which meant he was very large, very fluffy, and had a nose the size of a dinner roll. Every smell on the whole mountain came straight to that nose, whether Bastian wanted it to or not. Tonight, he had one important job. The keeper's hands were too cold and stiff to climb. So she held the lantern out to Bastian, handle first. He took it gently in his big soft mouth. The flame glowed gold behind the glass. His tail went fwump, fwump, fwump against the doorframe as he stepped out into the blue evening snow.
Sniff, sniff, sniff. The cold air hit his nose like a hundred tiny telegrams. Pine. Ice. Distant chimney smoke. Bastian put his enormous paws onto the path and began to plod upward. The lantern swung in his mouth, throwing little moving circles of light across the snow. Then the woodpile smell hit him. Something smoky and interesting and possibly involving a mouse. Bastian veered left, just slightly, just to check. The lantern swung wide. He pressed his nose against the birch logs — sniff, sniff, sniff — but there was no mouse. Only the sharp, papery smell of bark. He turned back to the path.
Then came the kitchen window. Butter. Something buttery and warm and possibly involving cheese. Bastian's paws slowed. His nose lifted. He stood completely still for four full seconds, breathing it in. Then he remembered the lantern, which was getting heavy, and plodded on. The third pine tree had a smell he couldn't quite name. Earthy. Cold. Like wet wool and something alive. Bastian stopped. He sniffed the snow around the roots. He sniffed lower. He pushed his nose under the crust of snow near an old buried boot — and then the boot moved.
It wasn't a boot. Well, it was a boot, but next to the boot was a small goat. A kid, really, tiny and shivering, with two amber eyes blinking up at him in the lantern light. She had walked in circles looking for her pen and gotten thoroughly, completely turned around. Bastian looked at the goat. He looked at the lantern in his mouth. He could not carry both. He was big, but he only had one mouth. He thought about this for a moment. His ears went sideways. His tail slowed. Then the goat took one step toward the lantern's glow. Then another. She wanted to follow the warm golden light.
Bastian took one step up the path. The goat followed. He took another. She followed that too. Sniff, sniff, sniff — this might actually work. So Bastian led her. Up the snowy path, around the big rock, past the second pine and the third, the lantern swinging steadily in his mouth, the little goat trotting close behind like a shadow with hooves. Her breath made small puffs in the cold dark air. At the top, the iron hook waited. Bastian rose up on his back legs, all that big Saint Bernard bulk balanced carefully, and stretched — and the lantern handle caught the hook with a solid, satisfying clunk. The light bloomed out across the mountain, steady and bright, so any lost hiker could see exactly where to go.
On the way back down, they passed the goat pen. The gate was open. The goat walked in, turned two circles, and lay down. Bastian nosed the gate shut with a click. The keeper was waiting at the door. She scratched both of Bastian's enormous ears at once and called him a very good, very round, very reliable dog. Bastian's tail went fwump. He walked to his hay bed, stepped in, and dropped into it like a sack of flour. Above on the mountain, the lantern glowed. Below in the pen, one small goat tucked her nose under her own leg. Bastian's eyes closed. His nose twitched once. Then everything was still.
