“Vilt hocks!” he squawked. “Shimminy Ghristmas! I vos deat alretty yet!” The sow ridged the rough bristles along her spine and made a sound which Hans thought her battle cry. He gave another squawk and dived for the nearest tree. Into its low branches he scrambled, throwing his feet across a bough and pulling himself by his hands. As it chanced, the tree was in the direct line of the sow’s flight. She dashed toward it, bringing another squeal of fear from Hans, and the pigs scampered at her heels. While hanging in this inverted position, with his cap gone and his pockets upside down, some peanuts that Hans had thrust into a pocket to munch on the mountain climb, dropped out to the ground. One of the pigs saw and scented them. Its chronic hunger overcame its fright, and, while its mother and the other members of the porcine family bounded on into the depths of the laurel it stopped and began to munch the peanuts. “I vos a deat mans!” gurgled Hans, fairly paralyzed by terror. “He vos going to ead up dose beanuds und my gap, und den he vill glimb dese dree ub und I vill ead heem! Hel-lup! hel-lup!” Now and then a peanut spilled out of the pocket, and when the pig had devoured all, it looked up at the peanut fountain for more, placing itself directly under Hans with its mouth expectantly open. “Oh, I vos deat! I vos kilt!” he howled. “Someboty gome guick und shood me, so dot I von’t ead mineselluf ub!” It was impossible for him to climb higher, both on account of his weakness, and the springy nature of the bough, and he was dimly conscious of the fact that he could not hold on much longer. Ordinarily, the pig would have fled from him, but its hunger now caused it to half lift itself on its hind legs and stretch its long nose up toward him. In that moment of supreme terror the Dutch boy’s strength entirely deserted him, and he fell from the bough, striking the pig directly in the center of the back. It went down, with a squeal. Hans rolled quickly over and tried to scramble to his feet. He could do nothing, however, but thresh his heel in the air and bellow for assistance. After a while it began to dawn on him that the dreaded monster was not devouring him alive, as he had fully expected, and that, since his fall, he had not heard a sound, except such as he made himself. “Id vos skeert me avay,” he thought, stopping his flailing heels and turning his head slowly to the point where the ravenous beast might be expected to be seen. He lifted himself slowly on his hands and stared, his eyes rounding out in astonishment. The pig lay on the ground as if dead. “Id vos maging a vool uf me, maype,” he reflected. “It vos shust agting like I vos deat. Id shust vant to play mit me, like I vos a gat und id vos a mouses.” Still, when the pig maintained that strange silence, Dunnerwust’s courage began to come back.