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