“Hello!” she sputtered, as she clutched the edge of the hole and began to draw herself out. “This here is what I calls an unfort’nit condition fer a lady to be in. B’ jings, it is! An’ I reckon I’ve et a peck o’ dirt and rotten wood, into the barg’in!” She spat pieces of wood out of her mouth, revealing a row of fanglike teeth. “And I’ve that mussed up my Sunday clo’es that I won’t be able to go to church nex’ Sunday!” At this she cackled in a strange way, as if she had uttered a good joke. With the scout’s assistance, she crawled out of the hole and dropped down in the nest of broad limbs that were matted together in front of the hole, forming there a sort of shelf of verdure. “Well, may I be switched if I was ever in sich a reedicklus situation before!” she grumbled. “I reckon you never before pulled a lady out o’ the top of a tree?” The scout was staring at her most ungallantly. “I didn’t,” he admitted. “I must beg your pardon if I was rough while hauling on that rope.” “Oh, I ain’t as light as swan’s-down!” she cackled. “I’m purty hefty; and heftier still when I git my mad up and git in a fight.” “But how did you get in such a place?” he was forced to demand. “I fell in.” “Fell in?” “You kin understand words, can’t ye? Yes, I fell in.” “But----” “Well, I clim’ up here last night, thinkin’ it’d be a safer place to spend the night in than down on the ground, with wolves howlin’ ’round, and mebbe road agents perambulatin’ along the trail. It looked like a good sort of a nest up here, and I thought I’d try it fer safety; fer I cal’lated that if a wild cat, er a panther, got into the tree, I could git down, mebbe; and I wasn’t as afeard o’ them as I was o’ the wolves I heerd howlin’. And so I clim’ up. And while mussin’ ’round here on these limbs, tryin’ to make myself comfortable, I slipped into that hole, hurtin’ my arm some; and then, fust thing I knowed, I was down in the holler of the tree inside, and couldn’t git out ag’in.” She laughed in a mirthless way. “Well, you better believe that I was scai’t some, when I found I couldn’t git out. I wiggled and I waggled, but it didn’t do no good; and there I had to stay.” She laughed again, with that singular, mirthless cackle. “Well, I was safe enough from wolves and varmints of that kind; you’d better believe I was. I didn’t hear a wolf, ner did a single wild cat er panther try to pay me a visit; but when mornin’ come I couldn’t git out. “I reckon I hollered so much that if the breath I wasted doin’ it was all collected, it’d fill the sails of the British navy. But it didn’t do a mite o’ good, seemed like, till bime-by I reckon you heerd me.” “Yes, I heard you. Your yells were enough to wake the dead!” She glanced down into the hole and shivered. “Now, if you’ll permit me, I’ll try to help you down to the ground,” he said. “Oh, law, I kin make that all right; that don’t trouble me a little bit!”