reams; they encountered no roving bands; no solitary hunter met them;
nowhere was there sign of human life. If their enemies were upon their
track, they knew it not--perfect peace, perfect solitude seemed to
encompass them. Still the Indian was vigilant; covering their trail with
unimaginable ingenuity, taking advantage of every running stream, every
stony hillside, building a fire only in some hidden hollow or fold of
the hills, using his bow and arrow to bring down the deer or wild fowl
which furnished them food--he stalked behind them, or sat bolt upright
against the tree or rock beneath which they had made their resting
place, tireless, watchful, the breathing image of caution. If he slept,
it was a sleep from which the sound of a falling acorn, the sleepy stir
of a partridge in the fern was sufficient to awaken him. Sometimes they
rested by fires, for they heard the wolves through the darkness; upon
the nights when this was necessary the Susquehannock sat with his gun
across his knees, piercing the darkness in every direction with keen and
restless eyes. Nothing worse than the wolves--cowardly as yet, for
though drawing swiftly nearer, winter and famine were still
distant--threatened them; no sound other than the forest sounds
disturbed them; through the scant undergrowth or over the moss and
partridge berry brushed nothing more appalling than bear or badger. But
the Indian watched on.

Day after day Landless and Patricia walked side by side through the
reddening forest. His hands steadied her over crags or down ravines, or
broke a way for her through vast beds of sassafras or mile-long tangles
of wild grape, and when their way lay along the bed of streams he
carried her. She had no need to complain of fatigue, for he saw when she
was weary, and called a halt. At their rustic meals he waited upon her
with grave courtesy, and when they halted for the night he made her
couch of fallen leaves and wove for it a screen of branches. They spoke
but little and only of the needs of the hour. She bore herself towards
him kindly and gently, thanking him with voice and smile for all that he
did for her, and there was no mistrust in her eyes; but he saw, or
fancied he saw, a shadow in their depths, and thinking, "She does not
forget, and neither must I," he set a watch upon himself, and bounds,
across which he was not to step.

Upon the afternoon of the sixth day they were passing through a deep and
narrow ravine--a mere crack