The dog was fleetest of foot; that half-mongrel dachshund bade fair to spoil the game for the boys, for he was far more interested in the presence of strangers than in a bonfire, no matter how high it blazed. Yaw-cub, or whatever the beast was called, began to bark at the corn-crib, but the followers of the elongated hound fortunately paid no attention to this. Close together came the next in line--Fraülein Shultz and a man, both plainly seen as they came within the zone of light from the fire. The woman turned the corner and stopped as though she had bumped against a post, her hands going to her bosom in relief and for want of breath. The man almost ran into her; then he let out a German remark, doubtless an oath, and wheeled about. Surprise number one had relieved, if disgusted, him; number two, which confronted him before he had taken two retracing steps, made him lift his arms as if trained in the art. “Hands up!” was Don’s order. “And be blamed quick about it!” supplemented Clem. “And you, too, Shultz!” Don addressed the on-coming and puffing old saloon keeper. “Eh? Vat? Bah! I safe mein barn! I safe mein horses und coos und mein piks!” “Hands up and stop! Your horses and cows and pigs are all safe. Put your hands up, if you don’t want to get some lead in you!” Shultz stopped, but rather at the command or announcement of his more active wife than because of an order from his captors. His bumptious self-importance would not permit him to knuckle to anybody, much less to mere American youths. “Huh! Vat? Chust poys, py gollies! Raus mit ’em! Clear oudt! I ring der necks off bodt! Put down dose pistols! Eh? Vat? Bah!” It instantly became evident that something most radical, however unpleasant, must be done to convince this egotistical German what young America can do when started. The preparations for war, the flower of our youth enlisting, the early determination to beat the Huns had evidently made little impression on this tub of conceited Prussianism. It was the certain duty of his youthful captors to impress not only a lesson on Shultz, but to maintain their own position in the _rôle_ they had chosen to assume. The necessity was also very apparent of repelling a weighty and sudden charge of the declared enemy, for Shultz, by reason of his calling, was given to combatting foes of almost every sort, albeit this must have been a somewhat new experience. It was Don who, as usual, saw first the need of action and improved upon it. Your trained, competing athlete, boxer, wrestler, leader of team contests must be as quick with his head as with his hands and the event of weapons on a possibly tragic mission and against a really dangerous opponent flabbergasted the boy not a bit. Words, he saw, were entirely useless; delay might be fatal--to someone, at least.