anyway," he
cried; "caught fast. Ho, what a jest, Ulrich von Gradwitz snared in his
stolen forest. There's real justice for you!"

And he laughed again, mockingly and savagely.

"I'm caught in my own forest-land," retorted Ulrich. "When my men come
to release us you will wish, perhaps, that you were in a better plight
than caught poaching on a neighbour's land, shame on you."

Georg was silent for a moment; then he answered quietly:

"Are you sure that your men will find much to release? I have men, too,
in the forest to-night, close behind me, and _they_ will be here first
and do the releasing. When they drag me out from under these damned
branches it won't need much clumsiness on their part to roll this mass of
trunk right over on the top of you. Your men will find you dead under a
fallen beech tree. For form's sake I shall send my condolences to your
family."

"It is a useful hint," said Ulrich fiercely. "My men had orders to
follow in ten minutes time, seven of which must have gone by already, and
when they get me out--I will remember the hint. Only as you will have
met your death poaching on my lands I don't think I can decently send any
message of condolence to your family."

"Good," snarled Georg, "good. We fight this quarrel out to the death,
you and I and our foresters, with no cursed interlopers to come between
us. Death and damnation to you, Ulrich von Gradwitz."

"The same to you, Georg Znaeym, forest-thief, game-snatcher."

Both men spoke with the bitterness of possible defeat before them, for
each knew that it might be long before his men would seek him out or find
him; it was a bare matter of chance which party would arrive first on the
scene.

Both had now given up the useless struggle to free themselves from the
mass of wood that held them down; Ulrich limited his endeavours to an
effort to bring his one partially free arm near enough to his outer coat-
pocket to draw out his wine-flask. Even when he had accomplished that
operation it was long before he could manage the unscrewing of the
stopper or get any of the liquid down his throat. But what a Heaven-sent
draught it seemed! It was an open winter, and little snow had fallen as
yet, hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might have been
the case at that season of the year; nevertheless, the wine was warming
and reviving to the wounded man, and he looked across with something like
a throb of pity to where his enemy