HARE AND HOUNDS
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.
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