and my heart was sick; I thought of my mother, and my tears fell like rain.... There was a noise at the window, and I stood upon my stool to see what it was. It was he! He had a knife and he worked and wrenched at the bars until he had wrenched them away, then dragged me through the window and we stood together beneath the stars—free! Another moment and we were down at the water side and into a boat which was fastened there. We loosed it and rowed with all our speed up the river. He had killed the gaoler and gotten away, bringing with him a musket and an axe. All that night we rowed, and when morning broke we were well-nigh past the settlements, for we had been far up river to begin with. That day we hid in the reeds, but when night came we sped up the stream. We came to the falls of the far west and left our boat there. For many days we walked through the woods, hurrying on, day after day, for when we lay down at night, I saw in my dreams the flash of the torches and heard the baying of the hounds. After a long while we came to an Indian village not many leagues from here, and there we found the mercies of the savage kinder than the mercies of the white man. They may have thought us mad—I do not know—but they did not harm us. There we dwelt for a time, in the stranger’s wigwam, and there the child was born." She pressed the little hand which she held, and which she had never ceased to beat against her bosom, to her lips. "He would have stayed in the village, but in sleep I still heard the bloodhounds, and we left the friendly Indians and pressed on. We came upon this knoll on just such an evening as this—the light in the west, and the stream very still, with a large white star shining down upon it. We lay down beside it, and that night I slept without a dream.... We have been here ever since, and here we shall stay until we die." "It is fair now," said Patricia, "but in a little while it will be winter and very cold." "Bitterly cold," said the woman. "The snow lies long in these hills, and the wind howls down the ravine." "And the wolves are bold in winter." "Very bold. This scar upon my arm is from the teeth of one which I fought here, on the very threshold." "The Indians threaten always, summer or winter." "Ay, sooner or later they will come against us. We shall die that way at last. But what does it matter—so that we die together?" The lady of the manor turned her pure, pale face upon the other with wonder, and yet with comprehension, written upon it. "You are happy!" she said, almost in a whisper. "Yes, I am happy," the woman answered, a light that was not from the faintly crimson west upon her face. *CHAPTER XXXII* *ATTACK*