The feeling that she must escape was so strong that she searched the little hut carefully, trying to discover some method of breaking out. It would not have resisted the efforts of a good burglar, but it was built too strongly for her to make any breach in the walls or door. She studied the floor of hard-beaten earth, wondering if she could not tunnel under the walls. With this thought in view she inspected the little table. Finally, she tried to break the table up, hoping to get a substitute for a spade from one of the boards. She succeeded in breaking off one of the table legs, but that was as far as she could go in demolishing the table. The table leg made a good club, but a poor digging implement. In despair she began to try to claw a hole under the wall with her fingers; but made such poor progress that she desisted after a time, breathless and discouraged, although she still was resolved to get out, and to get out before the return of the human fiend who had captured her. Making the round of the room again, and studying it by the light of the lamp burning on the floor--she had placed it there when she took it from the table--she observed that over the door was a projection of the upper door ledge. Back of that was a small space, where the stout logs fell away, making a sort of cranny, or cupboardlike hole, over the door and under the roof. She wondered if, by reaching that, she could not with the club poke a hole in the roof, and so get out that way. She drew the broken table up by the side of the door, and, mounting it, she reached up and took hold of the door ledge. To get up into that cranny would require the exertion of all her strength and climbing skill. She made the attempt, holding in one hand the table leg; and, in doing so, overturned the table, and for a moment or so hung suspended there by her hands. But she drew herself up pluckily, and by gaining a foothold in some inequalities of the wall she, with great exertion, climbed up to the ledge. Having gained the cranny, she dropped down, breathless and nearly exhausted. Before she had sufficiently regained her strength to attack the roof with the table-leg club, she heard footsteps outside, sounding like the footsteps of Panther Pete. If he came into the house, she felt that she was lost. He would at once see the broken and overturned table, and find her above the door, and would drag her down and take steps to prevent her escape. The thought nerved her to desperation. She heard him come up to the door, and heard him fumbling with the key in the lock. In very desperation she crouched above the door, holding the club. The door flew open, and he started to enter the room. She steeled her nerves and summoned all her strength. Then, quick as a flash, and before he could do anything, she brought the table-leg club down on his head with all her might.