"Just beyond the oak," he replied; "she was standing in a thicket covered with tangled vines as foul and poisonous as herself. I had all unthinking almost walked into her when suddenly I heard a snarl like some ravenous beast; I saw her horrible claws uplifted as though she were about to spring on me and tear me limb from limb. I jumped back, my heart almost standing still, thinking naught but that my end had come. She came no farther, but contented herself with crouching there and glaring at me with those awful eyes of hate that seemed to burn into my very soul." "Canst thou go with me where thou hast seen this witch or devil?" I said boldly, although I had not overly much stomach for the venture. As I said this he drew back and trembled violently as he cried out, "Nay, not even for the very hope of a safe hereafter would I go to that accursed place." "Then remain there, thou gentle coward, whilst I go," commanded I. Again he clutched me by the arm and cried out, "Nay, go not, Brother Jabez; even if she touch thee not her look will blast thee like lightning." "I fear her not," bragged I, and strode away, leaving him shuddering with the terror that had not yet grown cold, and with apprehensions for me. I had no trouble in finding the thick bush and entangling vines Brother Martin had pointed out to me. As I approached its dark, forbidding front, I trembled like a leaf, and then grew angry at my weakness. Then I went on, resolutely forcing my way into the vile vines that caught me all about my face and body and limbs so that I was ready to affirm naught human could penetrate such a wilderness; but though I looked carefully for any signs that would show that some one or something had thrust itself into these exasperating vines I could find nothing, even though I had in all these years learned much of the ways of the woods and its signs. In great bewilderment I was about to turn back to chide Brother Martin with having seen nothing but a creature of his own imagining when I saw in a small gully at the farther boundary of the thicket a footprint, small, a woman's surely, in the soft, clayey soil. Had the imprint been that of a cloven foot I could not have been more startled; for I knew that the Sisterhood seldom, if ever, came to the Brother woods, and the good wives and daughters of the near-by settlers were too timid and honest to trespass on our lands. Much perturbed, for I knew this thing boded evil to our community, I walked slowly back to my waiting brother, vague remembrances strangely flitting through my mind, but making no impression at the time, of how Sonnlein had come to me, and the midnight beating of our Brother Beissel. I found Brother Martin, still pale and fearful, anxiously wanting to know what I had learned. "Nothing," I said, "of witch or devil, but the substantial print of a woman's foot." "Was there no smell of brimstone? No cloven footprint?" he persisted.