“Den,” said the baron, going into the front room for his hat, “I vill shmoke, und shleep on der hay. Vat iss der preakfast time?”
“Sigs o’glock, oder venefer you retty vas for vat ve haf. Gott sei dank, ve got somet’ing to eat.”
Bidding Frau Dinkelmann good night, the baron left the house by the kitchen door, rounded the corner of the building, and crept stealthily to the boarded-up window.
Lightly he tapped on the boards. A tapping on the other side of the barrier answered him.
The baron breathed quick and hard. What would Nomad and Wild Bill not have given to be mixed up in such an adventure?
Ach, du lieber, but he was a lucky Dutchman!
After making sure that the lady had heard, and that she understood he would come to her rescue, the baron fell to examining the boards that closed up the opening.
They had been stoutly spiked to the side of the house. In prying them away, it would be necessary to use an axe, and there would be considerable noise.
The baron would have to wait until Frau Dinkelmann was fast asleep. Even then there was a chance that she would be aroused by his attack on the boards, but, if she was, he would rescue the lady anyway, and in spite of both the Dinkelmanns. The baron preferred, however, to rescue the lady quietly, and to get away from the house with her without making a scene with the muscular frau.
Leaving the cabin, he went to the woodpile and found an axe. This he carried to the window, and laid on the ground beneath it, where it would be conveniently at hand when the time came to remove the boards.