eaves, twigs, and dead branches,
and piled them together in a pyramid, as he had been taught to do by
the older woods-faring boys.

It was still; no wind; but Carl, who had gobbled up every word he had
heard about deer-hunting in the north woods, got a great deal of
interesting fear out of dreading what might happen if his one match
did not light. He made Gertie kneel beside him with the jacket
outspread, and he hesitated several times before he scratched the
match. It flared up; the leaves caught; the pile of twigs was
instantly aflame.

He wept, "Jiminy, if it hadn't lighted!..." By and by he announced,
loudly, "I wasn't afraid," to convince himself, and sat up, throwing
twigs on the fire grandly.

Gertie, who didn't really appreciate heroism, sighed, "I'm hungry
and----"

"My second-grade teacher told us a story how they was a' arctic
explorer and he was out in a blizzard----"

"----and I wish we had some tea-biscuits," concluded Gertie,
companionably but firmly.

"I'll go pick some hazelnuts."

He left her feeding the flame. As he crept away, the fire behind him,
he was dreadfully frightened, now that he had no one to protect. A few
yards from the fire he stopped in terror. He clutched a branch so
tightly that it creased his palm. Two hundred yards away, across the
creek, was the small square of a lighted window hovering detached in
the darkness.

For a panic-filled second Carl was sure that it must be the Black
Dutchman's window. His tired child-mind whined. But there was no creek
near the Black Dutchman's. Though he did not want to venture up to
the unknown light, he growled, "I will if I want to!" and limped
forward.

He had to cross the creek, the strange creek whose stepping-stones he
did not know. Shivering, hesitant, he stripped off his shoes and
stockings and dabbled the edge of the water with reluctant toes, to
see if it was cold. It was.

"Dog-gone!" he swore, mightily. He plunged in, waded across.

He found a rock and held it ready to throw at the dog that was certain
to come snapping at him as he tiptoed through the clearing. His wet
legs smarted with cold. The fact that he was trespassing made him feel
more forlornly lost than ever. But he stumbled up to the one-room
shack that was now shaping itself against the sky. It was a house
that, he believed, he had never seen before. When he reached it he
stood for fully a minute, afraid to move. But from across the creek
whimpered Gertie's cal