Then she gave a scream of surprise and terror, and stood still staring. She did not dare stir nor breathe. She was not in the open fields which she had always seen behind the house. She was in the midst of a gloomy forest of trees so tall that she could just see the wintry sky through their tops. She was hemmed in, too, by a wide, hooping undergrowth of bushes and brambles, all stiff with snow. There was something dreadful and ghastly about this forest, which had the breathless odor of a cellar. And suddenly Letitia heard again those strange sounds she had heard before coming out, and she knew that they were savage whoops of Indians, just as she had read about them in her history-book, and she saw also dark forms skulking about behind the trees, as she had read. Then Letitia, wild with fright, turned to run back into the house through the little green door, but there was no little green door, and, more than that, there was no house. Nothing was to be seen but the forest and a bridle-path leading through it. Letitia gasped. She could not believe her eyes. She ran out into the path and down it a little way, but there was no house. The dreadful yells sounded nearer. She looked wildly at the undergrowth beside the path, wondering if she could hide under that, when suddenly she heard a gun-shot and the tramp of a horse's feet. She sprang aside just as a great horse, with a woman and two little girls on his back, came plunging down the bridle-path and passed her. Then there was another gun-shot, and a man, with a wide cape flying back like black wings, came rushing down the path. Letitia gave a little cry, and he heard her. "Who are you?" he cried breathlessly. Then, without waiting for an answer, he caught her up and bore her along with him. "Don't speak," he panted in her ear. "The Indians are upon us, but we're almost home!" Then all at once a log-house appeared beside the path, and someone was holding the door ajar, and a white face was peering out. The door was flung open wide as they came up, the man rushed in, set Letitia down, shut the door with a crash, and shot some heavy bolts at top and bottom.