All that day and all that night he kept so close to Susanna that the poor woman wasn’t able to exchange a word with another human being.
Early next morning she escaped him and ran as fast as her legs could carry her to Helmi’s house.
“My dear,” she began all out of breath, “such a wonderful treasure as we’ve found but I’ve sworn never to whisper a word about it for fear the government should hear of it! I should have stopped and told you yesterday but your husband was beating you—”
“What’s that?” cried Helmi’s husband who came in just then and caught the last words.
“It’s the treasure we’ve found!”
“The treasure? What are you talking about? Begin at the beginning.”
“Well, my old man and me we started out yesterday morning and first we went to the river to see if there was anything in the nets. We found a grouse—”
“A grouse?”
“Yes, we found a grouse in the nets. Then we went to the forest and looked in the snares and in one we found a pike.”
“A pike!”