In the middle of the stream he found a new difficulty.  The posts to which these limber poles were nailed at either end sloped in opposite directions, so that while he started across on the upper side he found that when he got to the middle the pole fence began to slant so much up the stream that he must needs climb to the other side, a most difficult and dangerous performance on a fence of wabbling popple poles in the middle of a stream on a very dark night.  When at last he got across the stream, he found himself in the midst of a hazel thicket higher than his head.  He hallooed to Katy, and she was sure this time that it was his last drowning cry.  Working his way out of the hazel-brush, he came to a halt against a fence and waited for lightning.  That there was a house in the neighborhood he could not doubt, but whether it were inhabited or not was a question.  And where was it?

For full five minutes—­an eternal five minutes—­the pitiless rain poured down upon Charlton as he stood there by the fence, his eyes going forward to find a house, his heart running back to the perishing Katy.  At last the lightning showed him a house, and from the roof of the house he saw a stovepipe.  The best proof that it was not a deserted claim-shanty!

Stumbling round the fence in the darkness, Charlton came upon the house, a mere cabin, and tried three sides of it before he found the entrance.  When he knocked, the door was opened by a tall man, who said: 

“Right smart sprinkle, stranger!  Where did you come from?  Must ‘a’ rained down like a frog.”

But Albert had no time for compliments.  He told his story very briefly, and asked permission to bring his sister over.

“Fetch her right along, stranger.  No lady never staid in this ’ere shed afore, but she’s mighty welcome.”

Albert now hurried back, seized with a fear that he would find Katy dead.  He crossed on the poles again, shouting to Katy as he went.  He found her almost senseless.  He quickly loosed old Prince from the buggy, and tethered him with the lines where he would not suffer for either water or grass, and then lifted Kate from the buggy, and literally carried her to the place where they must needs climb along the poles.  It was with much difficulty that he partly carried her, partly persuaded her to climb along that slender fence.  How he ever got the almost helpless girl over into that hazel-brush thicket he never exactly knew, but as they approached the house, guided by a candle set in the window, she grew more and more feeble, until Albert was obliged to carry her in and lay her down in a swoon of utter exhaustion.

The inhabitant of the cabin ran to a little cupboard, made of a packing-box, and brought out a whisky-flask, and essayed to put it to her lips, but as he saw her lying there, white and beautiful in her helplessness, he started back and said, with a rude reverence, “Stranger, gin her some of this ’ere—­I never could tech sech a creetur!”