t in the farm-house. He reached far up
to the latch of the broad door and pulled out the wooden pin. The
latch slipped noisily from its staple. The door opened with a groaning
creek and banged against the barn.

Paralyzed, hearing all the silence of the wild clearing, he waited.
There was a step in the house. The door opened. A huge farmer,
tousle-haired, black-bearded, held up a lamp and peered out. It was
the Black Dutchman.

The Black Dutchman was a living legend. He often got drunk and rode
past Carl's home at night, lashing his horses and cursing in German.
He had once thrashed the school-teacher for whipping his son. He had
no friends.

"Oh dear, oh dear, I wisht I was home!" sobbed Carl; but he started to
run to Gertie's protection.

The Black Dutchman set down the lamp. "_Wer ist da?_ I see you!
Damnation!" he roared, and lumbered out, seizing a pitchfork from the
manure-pile.

Carl galloped up to Gertie, panting, "He's after us!" and dragged her
into the hazel-bushes beyond the corn-crib. As his country-bred feet
found and followed a path toward deeper woods, he heard the Black
Dutchman beating the bushes with his pitchfork, shouting:

"Hiding! I know vere you are! _Hah!_"

Carl jerked his companion forward till he lost the path. There was no
light. They could only crawl on through the bushes, whose malicious
fingers stung Gertie's face and plucked at her proud frills. He lifted
her over fallen trees, freed her from branches, and all the time,
between his own sobs, he encouraged her and tried to pretend that
their incredible plight was not the end of the world, whimpering:

"We're a'most on the road now, Gertie; honest we are. I can't hear him
now. I ain't afraid of him--he wouldn't dast hurt us or my pa would
fix him."

"Oh! I hear him! He's coming! Oh, please save me, Carl!"

"Gee! run fast!... Aw, I don't hear him. I ain't afraid of him!"

They burst out on a grassy woodland road and lay down, panting. They
could see a strip of stars overhead; and the world was dark, silent,
in the inscrutable night of autumn. Carl said nothing. He tried to
make out where they were--where this road would take them. It might
run deeper into the woods, which he did not know as he did the Arch
environs; and he had so twisted through the brush that he could not
tell in what direction lay either the main wagon-road or the M. & D.
track.

He lifted her up, and they plodded hand in hand till she said:

"I'm awful