The moment they were again gone, he turned his eyes towards the opening, and listened. "Do you know me?--answer by a sign." Cris nodded in the affirmative. "You believe I am desirous to serve you?" To this question he almost nodded his head off. "Listen, then; and be careful to obey my instructions. This opening leads into the next house. The exit from it is through another-- unfortunately it is a public room; therefore you cannot escape that way without as much risk as you would by going directly out by the door. Don't go that way, but by the window. You see that window?" Cris looked up. He had seen the window, certainly, and had already looked at it in every possible light, while considering a means of escape, but had come to the conclusion that it wouldn't suit. In reply, he shook his head despairingly. His visitor seemed to understand him. "It is too high, perhaps?" Cris intimated by a sign that the difficulty was not in its height. "The bars would prevent you getting out?" The hunter's head nodded like a mandarin's. "Is that all? Then I may as well tell you. Hush! some one is coming." One of the sentinels had thrust his head inside the door; he luckily withdrew it, convinced that all was right. On its disappearance Carrol's mysterious visitor returned, and resumed the conversation. "You think those bars would hinder your escape?" Another nod was the answer. "You are mistaken." The backwoodsman, now perfectly _au fait_ with his pantomimic part of the dialogue, gave a modest but expressive look of dissent. "I tell you you are mistaken," continued the young girl, "they are all sawn through. I see you are curious to know who did that?" Cris said "yes," without speaking a word. "It was I!" "You?" he telegraphed. "Yes; I was once a close prisoner in this very room--not watched as you are, but still a prisoner. I broke a watch to pieces, took out the mainspring, filed a saw with the nail-cleaning blade of a pen-knife, and with that I sawed away the bars, leaving barely enough to hold them together." Carrol's look expressed astonishment. "Yes; it _was_ hard work, and it took weeks to accomplish it. I dare say you wonder why I didn't make my escape. That's too long a story to tell you now." The backwoodsman's look was very eloquent, and his visitor equally quick of comprehension. By that look he asked a question. "No; I'm not a prisoner now," she answered, "only in name. You shall have the benefit of my labours. But you must do everything cautiously. And first, to get rid of your guards." "How was that to be done?" It was the captive who asked himself this question.