Could she save them? All her stern Quaker blood rose at the thought, and stealing softly to the paddock behind the barn, she saddled Daisy and led her through the bars into the wood road, which opened into the highway just around the bend. Could she but pass the pickets without discovery there would be little danger of pursuit; then there would be only the long ride of eight miles ahead of her. Just before the narrow wood road joined the broader highway Betty mounted Daisy by means of a convenient stump, and starting off at a gallop, had just turned the corner when a voice shouted “Halt” and a shot whistled past her head. Betty screamed with terror, and bending over, brought down her riding whip with all her strength upon Daisy, then, turning for a moment, saw three troopers hurriedly mounting. Her heart sank within her, but, beginning to feel the excitement of the chase, she leaned over and patting Daisy on the neck, encouraged her to do her best. Onward they sped. Betty, her curly hair streaming in the wind, the color now mounting to, now retreating from, her cheeks, led by five hundred yards. But Daisy had not been used for weeks, and already felt the unusual strain. Now they thundered over Naaman’s Creek, now over Concord, with the nearest pursuer only four hundred yards behind; and now they raced beside the clear waters of Beaver Brook, and as Betty dashed through its shallow ford, the thud of horses’ hoofs seemed just over her shoulder. Betty, at first sure of success, now knew that unless in some way she could throw her pursuers off her track she was surely lost. Just then she saw ahead of her a fork in the road, the lower branch leading to the Brandywine, the upper to the Birmingham Meeting-house. Could she but get the troopers on the upper road while she took the lower, she would be safe; and, as if in answer to her wish, there flashed across her mind the remembrance of the old cross-road which, long disused, and with its entrance hidden by drooping boughs, led from a point in the upper road just out of sight of the fork down across the lower, and through the valley of the Brandywine. Could she gain this road unseen she still might reach Washington. Urging Daisy forward, she broke just in time through the dense growth which hid the entrance, and sat trembling, hidden behind a dense growth of tangled vines, while she heard the troopers thunder by. Then, riding through the rustling woods, she came at last into the open, and saw spread out beneath her the beautiful valley of the Brandywine dotted with the white tents of the Continental army. Starting off at a gallop, she dashed around a bend in the road into the midst of a group of officers riding slowly up from the valley. “Stop, little maiden, before you run us down,” said one, who seemed to be in command. “Where are you going in such hot haste?” “Oh, sir,” said Betty, reining in Daisy, “can thee tell me where I can find General Washington?”