Nevertheless the women started off for the strawberries. Little Patience, with the strip of patchwork dangling from her pocket, joined them so quickly that one could almost believe some large stitches had been taken on that last square. When Anthony Wiggin had finished his work and each paper had been placed in its proper pigeon hole, he closed his desk. "Hm," he muttered, glancing from the window at the women and children in the field, "they do not sense the danger we constantly live in, now that the French have stirred up the Indians. I believe I will frighten them with a shot, just as a warning." [Illustration] He picked up his gun from the corner where it was kept in constant readiness and, stepping to the door, sent a bullet over the heads of the strawberry pickers, whizzing into the woods beyond. Baskets and berries were dropped by the pickers in their fright and haste to get home, for their fears had been aroused by the words of Anthony Wiggin before they left the house. Patience, who had not sensed a possible danger, had wandered near to the woods where the berries were more abundant. Even after the sound of the gun, she lingered for a few more strawberries. The shot acted like magic upon the inhabitants of Exeter, who took it for an alarm of danger. Men dropped plough or rein and seized their guns. Women followed with powder-horns and bullets. In less time than one could believe, an armed body was in the village centre ready to protect their homes. That gun-shot carried its force still farther, for there in the woods beyond the strawberry field lay the Indians in ambush. "We are discovered," reported their leader. The savages then bounded into the open to make their attack, only to find themselves faced by an armed body of men. Firing a few shots, the Indians then made a hasty retreat. One, however, seeing Patience running for home and yet not halfway across the field, dashed after her, caught the child in his arms, and followed the retreating band. "Patience! Patience!" shrieked her mother. "She is captured! Oh, save her!" and the woman turned imploringly to her townsmen. They started in an almost hopeless pursuit, for the speed of an Indian in the woods is hard to cope with. Some dropped out of the chase, but the swiftest and more persistent men kept at it, Anthony Wiggin in the lead. Hours of agonizing horror then passed for Patience's mother as she pictured her own little girl in the cruel clutches of the savages. She could feel no possible hope of rescue. In the meantime the men continued a long and wearying chase, when suddenly a distant glimpse of an Indian was seen through the clearing. Anthony Wiggin, still ahead, sent a shot and soon after came upon little Patience alone in the woods.