She didn't want Davey and Sammy to reach her. Not out here, with no one else around. She knew Sammy would beat her until her resistance was gone. Then he would run his sweaty hands over her, laughing shrilly and breathing hard. Sammy always managed it so that Davey was the one who held her. She shuddered. She didn't like the things Sammy did with his hands. A short distance ahead she saw that the field rose in a ridge, and suddenly she recognized the spot. There was a ravine below the ridge, choked with brush. She would be able to hide here, at least until she had caught her breath and could run again. She drew upon her last dregs of strength and urged her legs into a burst of speed. The ridge rose before her as she drew ahead of the two boys. She struggled up the slope, and the brush along the crest whipped at her legs and caught at her dress as she beat her way through it. She went down the opposite slope in staggering leaps. Near the bottom of the ravine she fell and rolled the last few yards until a wall of brush brought her up short. She scrambled back to her feet. Bent low, she began darting through gaps in the brush, ignoring the branches that raked and lashed at her. She heard a shout and caught a glimpse of Davey and Sammy on the ridge crest. Evidently they had seen her from above, but once down in the ravine the brush would cut off their view and make their search difficult. She hoped to be well hidden by then. Threshing, crackling sounds rose behind her as the boys scrambled down into the ravine. It was all somehow distant and unreal. A roaring filled her ears, and her head felt strangely light. The pattern of branches and leaves blurred smokily before her eyes. At last she reached a shallow crevice on the opposite side of the ravine, screened by a clump of brush. It was hardly large enough to squeeze her body into, but it was the best hiding place she could find in what little time remained. * * * * * She pressed tightly into the crevice, trembling, her eyes shut. Davey and Sammy mustn't find her! She repeated the thought over and over, straining with a frantic intensity, as if she could avoid being discovered by force of will alone. The dizzy sensation swept over her again. She had felt it before, though not as strongly as now. And she had realized it was produced by a serious change in her--a change announcing her emergence into womanhood. It had given her a new sense of being, an exultant awareness of power. But it was her weakness now. The noise of hurrying footsteps and rustling branches came from a point frighteningly close. She heard Davey speak in a complaining tone. "Aw, let's go home, Sammy. Fran's gone, and I'm tired of chasing her." "She's around here somewhere," Sammy insisted in his nasal voice. "We'd of seen her if she tried to climb out."