And now she began to review the usual morning movements at Tim's Place--Tim the first one up, calling her, then going out to milking; the others, slower to arise, getting out and about their special duties. Pete, she knew, always slept in one of the two empty log cabins which were first built there. Her father slept in the other or in the barn. Neither would be called, she knew--it was get around in time for breakfast at Tim's Place or go hungry. And so she speculated on her chances of early pursuit. Here on this bridge she now meant to remain until the first sign of dawn, then push on again with all speed. She already had a five-mile start, she was weary, footsore, and still faint from the awful terrors of her flight; to go on meant to rush into the swarm of spites once more, and so she lay inert on the hard logs watching, listening, calculating. And now cheered by this trifling hope and lessening sense of danger, her past life came back. Her childhood in a far-off settlement; the home always in a turmoil from the strange men and women ever coming and going; the drinking, swearing, singing, at all hours of the night, her constant fear of them and wonder who they were and why they came. There were other features of this disturbed life: frequent quarrels between her father and mother; curses, tears, and sometimes blows, until at last after a night more hideous than any other her mother had taken her and fled. Then came a long journey to another village and a new life of peace and quietness. Here it was all so different--no red-shirted men to be afraid of, no loud-voiced women drinking with them. She became acquainted with other children of her own age, was sent to school and taken to church. Here, also, her mother began to smile once more, and look content. For two years, and the only ones Chip cared to recall, she had been a happy schoolgirl, and then came a sudden, tragic end to it all. Of that she never wished to think. It was all so horrible, and yet so mercifully brief. The one friend life held, her mother, had been brought home, wounded to death amid the whirring wheels of the mill where she worked; there were a few hours of agonized dread as her life ebbed away, a whisper or two of love and longing, and then the sad farewell made doubly awful by her father's frowning face and harsh voice. At its ending, and in spite of her fears and tears, she was now borne away by him. For days they journeyed deeper and deeper into a vast wilderness, to halt at last at Tim's Place. Like a dread dream it all came back now, as she lay there on this one flat spot of security--the bridge--and listened to the river's low murmur.