“Very well, Mr. John, I obey you,” said Julie, sitting down again in a large armchair before the flames, where the ruddy light once more deepened the gold of her hair and the rose of her cheeks.  “It seems that you intend to be master here.”

“I’m master already.  My rule has become supreme, nor am I any usurper.  Do I not hold a commission from Prince Karl of Auersperg, the owner of this lodge, and did he not intrust you to my care?  I mean to do my duty.  And now come, Suzanne, you and I will see what this wilderness castle of ours contains.”

The hunting lodge was worthy of a prince.  It was built of massive logs, but the interior was improved and finished in modern style.  There were no electric lights, but it contained almost every other luxury or convenience.  Besides the great room in which Julie was now sitting, they found on the ground floor a writing-room well supplied, a small parlor, a gunroom amply equipped with a variety of arms and ammunition, a dining-room containing much princely silver, a butler’s pantry, a kitchen and a storeroom holding food enough to last them a year.  Above stairs were six bedrooms, any one of which the capable Suzanne could put in order in half an hour.  All the house had running water drawn from some reservoir in the mountains.

John had seen such luxurious camps as this in the Adirondacks in his own country, and there were many others scattered about the mountains of Europe, but he was very grateful now to find such a refuge for Julie.  Again he realized how fortunate they had been to arrive so early.  As he looked from an upper window he saw that the storm was driving with tremendous fury.  Even behind the huge logs he heard the wind roaring and thundering, and now and then, through the thick glass of the windows, he caught a glimpse of a young pine torn up by its roots and whirled past.

Where was Muller, the forester, who had charge of the lodge and who lived there, and what kind of a man was he?  It was the only question that was troubling him now.  If he did not come soon he could not come that night, nor perhaps the next day.  The snowfall was immense, with every sign of heavy continuance, and by morning it certainly would lie many feet deep on the mountain.  Traveling would be impossible.  He heard the distant sound of a bell, and knowing that the telephone was calling, he ran down the stairway to the great room.  Julie had risen and was looking at the instrument with dilated eyes, as if it sounded a note of alarm, as if their happy escape was threatened by a new danger.  John believed that she had fallen asleep before the heat of the fire, and that the ring of the telephone had struck upon her dreaming ear like a shell.

“It’s he!  It’s the terrible prince himself!” she exclaimed, her faculties not yet fully released from cloudy sleep.

“Very likely,” said John, “but have no fear.  Zillenstein is only six leagues away at ordinary times, but it’s six hundred tonight, with the greatest storm that I’ve ever seen sweeping in between us.”