He planned carefully. He must be sure to come down into the open at a spot beyond where Wentz and his men were searching. He knew the country well. There was a village on the hillside, half a mile below. It was midway between Schöndorf and the farm house at Blaufelden. The families of some of the foresters lived there and there was telephonic connection both with the farm and Windenberg. All of the men of Mittelwald who were not in the Forest Service were off at the front and the chances were that unless Wentz and his men were there, Hammersley would see only women and children. But he knew that von Stromberg had neglected nothing that would give an inkling of his whereabouts and his presence would be at once reported and the chase begin. He was in excellent condition, trained a little too fine perhaps for an Englishman, but fit. He had done little running since leaving the University, and though he had lost some of his old speed, he could rely upon the thought of his danger and Doris’s to provide the incentive for extraordinary effort. Mittelwald lay in a clearing similar to that at Blaufelden, and its farms, if farms they could be called, clambered up the hillside and straggled over beyond the road where they were merged into the undergrowth of young oaks. The Schöndorf road, curving this way and that, passed between the houses, which were set at irregular intervals, like the strips on the tail of a kite. He went on through the underbrush, coming out into the open upon the road at the point where it entered the woods upon the Schöndorf side. Then he settled his automatic loosely in its sheath, and went forward boldly. His eye had marked the line of the telephone wire and followed it to the gable of one of the largest houses in the village. It was to this house that he made his way. A young woman was working in the garden and he approached her quietly and politely, but with an air of a man not to be trifled with, asked for food. He was aware that he was unshorn, covered with mud, and that his face was streaked with dirt and perspiration, but he knew that his appearance alone could not have accounted for the sudden blanching of the woman’s face and the air of alarm with which she regarded him. She straightened and fell back two or three paces toward the house, unable to speak a word in reply. So he repeated his request, while her mouth gaped at him and her eyes grew rounder. At last she managed to stammer, “Food! You are hungry?” “Yes. Potato bread--anything, but quickly. I will go with you to the house.” And he indicated the way. She stumbled on before him, her head jerking anxiously this way and that over her shoulder as though she feared at any moment to receive a blow or a shot in the back. But he followed her indoors and noted with satisfaction that she appeared after all to be a woman of some intelligence. A thing that pleased him further was the telephone instrument in the corner.