"You must be ready to start with the Count in an hour," exclaimed Sperver, as he stood on my threshold before the sun had yet risen. "Sebalt and Becker came in late last night, famished, and covered with mud, and they have reported a wild boar's tracks near the Leidenthal. I will lend you whatever clothes you need, but be quick, for there's only breakfast between us and the start."

I got up, and taking a hasty plunge in the icy water beside my bed, which served to drive the vapors from my brain, I half dressed myself, and followed Sperver to his room.

"The beaters found game worthy of our powder," continued Gideon. "They brought back a dried clump of bog-mud with an enormous hoof-print in the middle of it. If the Count's carbine misses fire, we must stand in well beside him this time, though he always grudges the fatal shot to any arm but his own."

I paid little heed to his words, busied as I was in accommodating myself to my borrowed garments, and I presently emerged from the chamber dressed in a leather hunting-jacket, cap, and long gaiters which reached to my hips; a carbine and long hunting-knife completed my outfit.

"If I only had you for a couple of weeks on the forest patrol, I would make a first-class shot out of you," said Sperver with a grin. "As it is, I suppose you know as much about a gun as a pike does of mountain climbing."

"Just about!" I laughed. "However, I'm fortunately in such good company that it will make little difference whether I can tell the muzzle from the stock, or not."

"There's something in that," he returned; "and as there are to be ladies in the party you may find other employment as agreeable as the killing of animals," and he looked at me with a dry twitching of his mouth.

I made no reply to this beyond rather a grim smile, and a moment later we reached the dining-room. I found the Count dressed in hunting-costume, seated at the table, on which Tobias was placing the last dishes for the breakfast. He complimented me on my professional appearance, and added that, judging from externals, a little practice was all that was necessary to make me an accomplished huntsman.

I looked in vain for Odile as I entered the room, but she presently appeared in a close-fitting habit which became her marvellously well, sparkling with health and freshness, and bearing in one hand her long skirt, and in the other a pearl-handled crop. A pistol with a heavy barrel was thrust beneath her belt, more for ornament, I fancied, than for service.

"Ha! Odile!" cried her father, as she greeted us and took her seat at the table, "the mere sight of your rosy cheeks and lithe step puts new life into me! It's a pleasure to look at you. Isn't it so, Monsieur Gaston?" then, as Odile grew crimson with confusion, the Count perceived his blunder, and began to busy himself with the dishes before him. The next moment I caught Odile's eye, as she stole an amused glance at me, and I nodded a quick affirmative, without violence to my conscience.

The meal passed with narratives of hunting exploits by the Count, who delighted in recalling his past experiences, often discontinuing his meal to illustrate by attitudes and gestures his combats with the different animals of the regions round about. Odile and I proved good listeners, though, perhaps, as one sometimes hearkens to a strain of music, the better to indulge his own reflections.

Breakfast finished, we went down into the courtyard. A dozen horses stood saddled just inside the principal gate. Sebalt, in his leather dress, with his double-coiled horn strapped across his back, and a heavy cowhide whip in his hand ready to strike, held a score of dogs in leash, that were baying and tugging at their bonds in excited anticipation of the part they were to play in the day's sport. Joy gleamed in every line of his goat's face as his long deferred desire was now about to be realized. Gideon, who held the Count's horse, looked more himself than I had seen him since the death of poor LieverlÉ; he seemed to have recovered much of his wonted good spirits.

I pushed aside the groom who stood beside Odile's horse, and she sprang from my hand into the saddle. Then I, in turn, mounted my horse, and moved abreast of Odile and the Count.

When all was in readiness, Sebalt raised his horn and sounded the departure as, according to Sperver, he alone could sound it.

The neighboring hillsides took up the sound, and threw it back in tones of purest silver, and all the echoes of the valleys were awakened and fled away towards the rising sun. This warm February sun had done its work, and the snow had disappeared to a level of but a few inches, covered with a hard crust. We started off at a gallop. Sebalt and Sperver rode first, with Odile, the Count, and myself close behind them. Becker and the under-keepers came on in the rear.

Sebalt led the pack along the base of the Gaisenberg, and skirting the falls of the Lauterbach, he followed along the defile at its further side, from which point the trail diverged in the direction of the Leidenthal. The weather was superb, not a cloud in the heavens, and the frosty air clear as crystal. The bare oaks creaked their gaunt branches, and the singing pines waved their lofty tops in the fresh south wind. The yelping of the pack could have been heard for a mile around, and Gideon, turning from time to time, called to them:

"Hold your noise, you rascals; you'll have reason enough to howl before long, I'll warrant."

There was little chance for conversation at the furious pace which we were following, and I contented myself with frequent glances at Odile, whose superb beauty was enhanced by the bright color in her cheeks, which excitement, exercise and happiness called forth. As for the Count, I could no longer recognize in him the dying patient of my first night at Nideck. All trace of his terrible illness had vanished, and he rode like a youth of twenty years, vigorous, calm, confident.

At the end of an hour we emerged from the defile into the dazzling sunlight beyond. The dogs came upon the trail of the boar, and their long, full cries changed to exultant yappings; they glided along to right and left among the rocks, their noses to the ground, and they ran and leaped along the trail. Not one of them followed the other's lead, until he had verified the scent for himself; like all true hunting dogs, they relied only upon themselves.

Meanwhile, the blast of the horn, the short, savage yelps of the pack, and the noise of our horses' hoofs as they pierced the sparkling snow crust, made music of an exciting, bewildering sort. I galloped on imbued to the finger-tips with the contagious anticipation everywhere around me.

For some little time past the order of the hunt had been broken up. The Count, seemingly lost in the one object of the chase and oblivious to all else, had ridden far ahead, and had almost overtaken Sebalt and Sperver, who were at such a distance from us that the sound of their trumpets grew feebler and feebler, and at length were entirely lost, save that at rare intervals they reached our ears like the sigh of the passing breeze. The mounts of Becker and his comrades, though chosen for endurance and strength, were not the equal of ours in speed; and thus it was that Odile and I now found ourselves alone, as it were, midway in the plain.

On we went. Every now and then Odile would turn her head and smile at me; then she would whisper to her horse, and we bounded along yet faster. From the less frequent pauses of the pack, that glided, no larger than rabbits now, up the distant slopes, and their straight-ahead course, I fancied that the foremost of the party were approaching the whereabouts of the game.

It was now that a belt of dense woods became visible on the rising ground before us. The Count had by this time gained so far upon us that we presently saw him disappear, together with his followers, within its borders.

"We must be in at the death!" cried Odile breathlessly; "let's make haste!" and she urged her horse still further, while I clapped spurs to mine. Twenty minutes later we had covered the intervening distance, and dashed into the shadows of the wood.

We had not proceeded above a mile further, when we found that our road forked, and running over an extensive ledge of rock, swept bare of snow and pine-needles by the wind, we were at a loss which path to follow, for there were no tracks of horses nor dogs, and the direction of both paths being apparently the same, the noise of the pack growing momentarily fainter, afforded us no clue to our proper course.

We reined up, impatient at this vexatious occurrence.

"Which way now?" I cried to Odile.

She hesitated for a moment.

"Let's go to the right!" she replied. "There's a new blaze on that beech-tree yonder. Perhaps one of the men's guns bruised the bark as he passed it!" and without waiting for me to reply, she started on again.

It occurred to me a few moments later that we might now be left entirely alone if, perchance, we had chosen the wrong path, and if our followers, who would inevitably meet with the same question of direction on reaching the fork in the road, should decide upon the one to the left.

I felt little apprehension in being thus deserted, as it were, but let it not be understood by this that fearlessness formed any part of my character; it was to the more ignoble trait of ignorance that my present equanimity was due. I did, however, feel that Odile should be reminded of the fact, and I proceeded to communicate it to her; but whether it was that her attention was so much engrossed by the business in hand that she had no thought for anything else, or whether she considered my apprehensions groundless, her only reply was a smile and a motion of her head, as her horse carried her away from me, which I interpreted as meant to reassure me, and I gave my horse his head.

From time to time we heard, far over on the mountainside, the sound of the woodcutter's axe, falling against the oak with measured stroke,—that slow, heavy stroke that is taken up and exaggerated by the echoes,—then the creaking of the falling tree, the shout of warning, and the thud of the giant as it measured its length upon the earth, crashing among the underbrush. Owing to the frequent windings of the woodland path, and the uncertain character of the ground, we were obliged to moderate our speed, and as we came upon the open land between the hills, the barking of the dogs reached us, loud for a moment, then faint again, as some intervening object came between us.

"You hear the dogs!" cried Odile; "we are on the right path after all!"

And as the sounds became more distinct with each moment, I was satisfied that she was right.

Here and there, as we entered a dark defile, we saw the fire of the charcoal-burner beneath the shadowy boughs, spreading its purple ring over the snow-crust and even to the tops of the swaying firs, then drawing its uncertain rays the closer until it was no longer but a spark, only to spread them out again yet wider than before. The outline of the charcoal-burner, stooping over the flame, with his broad-brimmed hat flattened on his shoulders, smoking his short, black pipe, and turning potatoes in the embers, reminded me at a distance of the trolls that are said to quarry gems of untold value in the centre of the earth.

The noise of the dogs, forming a discordant, frenzied concert, grew nearer every moment. At length a sharp turn to the left, as we emerged from the deep, narrow glen which we had been traversing for some minutes past, brought us, it almost seemed, right upon the game, so startling was the uproar that greeted us.

I was now convinced that we had happened upon the right path, and I expected momentarily to come upon the Count's party engaged in securing the game. I glanced back to see if Becker and his comrades were near us, but our frequent windings through the forest would have concealed them completely from our view, even had they followed us.

Up to this point I had been vaguely regretting my inexperience in the hunt, though I still had little realization of the danger that might threaten us. But now, as I heard the loud blare of Sebalt's horn not above a quarter of a mile before us, I felt entirely reassured, and both Odile and I were looking expectantly for the forms of the Count and his huntsmen among the trees.

A few rods further on we came upon a brake, half swamp, half stubble, beyond which, as far as the eye could reach, the sun once more shone brightly. We advanced at a walk, which the treacherous nature of the ground made necessary. The din of the maddened dogs, and a strange, ominous snarl, the like of which I had never before heard, told us that the beast was run, or nearly run, to earth.

"Whose hand will the slaying fall to to-day?" I exclaimed laughingly to Odile.

"To my father's, if his aim is true," replied Odile excitedly.

She had hardly finished these words when a sudden parting of the bushes before us brought us into a crescent-shaped clearing some fifty yards in extent, and entered at its opposite side by the other forest path. Directly in the centre of this clearing, surrounded by a score of dogs that had seized him by the ears and neck, and were vainly endeavoring to bear him down, regardless of those of their number who had succumbed to his savage tusks,—was a huge wild boar!

I confess to a sensation of horror at the sight. I glanced involuntarily at Odile, whom I would have given anything in the gift of man to see removed as far as possible from the spot. She, apparently undaunted still, though with a shade less color in her fair cheeks, turned hastily towards me and motioned me to hand her my rifle. I complied with misgiving, silently cursing my ignorance of the weapon's use, and in another moment Odile was gazing along its glistening barrel.

There was a report, and though the aim was true it failed of its effect. And now the raging brute, infuriated by the pain of the wound, charged directly upon Odile, heedless of the sharp fangs which lacerated him, unchecked by the combined strength of the pack.

My dismay was complete when, the next moment, the frightened animal which Odile rode, rearing up at the boar's furious onslaught, lost its footing in the treacherous bog-land and fell on its side,—happily upon its right side.

Leaping to the ground, I had only time to seize my love about the waist and swing her beyond the reach of the horse's flying hoofs, when the boar was upon me. There was no time for reflection. I fell upon my knees before the brute, my hunting-knife extended straight before me, and held with all the strength of my arm.

So quickly works the eye sometimes, in moments of danger, that in this instant I saw the Count, or rather, perhaps, he came within my range of vision, pale as death, and riding at the highest speed along the opposite path, while close behind him followed Gideon and Kraft.

The knife in my hand never swerved, for the love I bore Odile steadied my arm as I fancy that alone could have done. The mad rush of the boar was but the means of his surer destruction. He came straight upon the knife, and the momentum of his ponderous body drove the steel deep through his heart. I felt the gush of his life's blood pour over my arm and chest; then I heard a cry from Odile's lips and a shout of wild triumph from the Count and his huntsmen; then I fell backwards, my consciousness half crushed out by the enormous weight of the brute's body as it struck against me in its swaying fall to the earth.

A moment later Odile, oblivious to all around her, had thrown herself into my arms and burst into uncontrollable tears. The crisis of the moment just passed had completely unnerved her and robbed her of her usual calm control.

We stood thus when the Count reined up before us.

"Ha! is it so?" he exclaimed, endeavoring to hide his emotion beneath a joking exterior. "And why not? Who deserves better of a woman than the lad who has saved her life and her father's too!" And as Sebalt and Gideon rode up, all three jumped from their saddles and wrung my hands, while good old Sperver beamed with gratified pride, and pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes to screen them from the glare of the sun.

These words of the Count had filled our cup of happiness to the brim. Though I had dared to hope for little exception on his part when I should determine to impart to him my wishes, yet this complete and cordial acceptance of the relationship existing between Odile and myself filled me with unwonted exultation. Nor was the Count's satisfaction any less, I believe, as he realized that the fulfilment of that desire which lay nearest his heart was now assured him. It seemed, moreover, that he had guessed something of the truth during the hours which we had passed together in his sick-room.

"Aye," said he, in speaking of it afterwards, "did you think I had not weighed my words, Gaston, when I promised you any reward you should require of me? And was I wrong in believing that such a spirited lad as you, and one after my own heart, might find his happiness in Odile; for she is lovely, is she not, though she is my child?"

For all answer, I drew Odile closer to me, and kissed the fair face that rested on my shoulder.