Girl in a Buckskin

horses.”
    Becky shook her head. “It’s not what lies ahead that I fear just now.”
    O’Hara’s eyes narrowed. “You think we’re being followed?”
    “I don’t know.” She turned in her saddle and once again had the feeling that just as she moved her head something or someone slid from her sight. Almost since they had left the valley there had been this crawling sensation at her back. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like this part of their trip at all. They were drawing close to white man’s country now and there was danger everywhere. They were exposed and vulnerable and now there was this feeling that every move of theirs was being watched.
    “Very well,” O’Hara said grimly, seeing the look on her face. “We’ll ride.” He dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and his stallion broke into a canter with Becky’s horse following. This was truly throwing caution to the four winds, for now the ground would tremble from the beat of the hoofs and there would not be an animal or an Indian who would not know that horses were coming through. They broke through the underbrush to the Indian trail and let their horses set the pace.
    The sun crept higher and at last they were forced to walk their horses again. Leaving the Indian trail they plunged into the forest. At a mountain stream they paused to water the horses but did not dismount. “Well?” said O’Hara, returning to her with a smile.
    She bravely returned his smile. “Westfield must be near,” she said.
    He glanced at the sky and nodded. “Less than an hour to the east.”
    “It would be best to stay clear of the trail now,” she said, and he nodded.
    They began to descend from the plateau and now the going was rough. Time had carved wrinkles into this side of the mountain, odd little ravines running up and down the hill like lines on the face of an old man. Boulders jutted up through the underbrush and a storm had sent many trees to the ground, leaving great cavities in the earth where the roots had been tom up. A likely place for an ambush, Becky thought, and saw O’Hara cock his gun. Her eyes ached from roving the woods, watching for the flicker of movement, for fallen logs that might abruptly turn into Indians, for tree limbs from which a man might suddenly drop on them. And all the while, from the rear, she felt eyes watching them and the prickle of fear ran up and down her spine.
    The trees had begun to thin and the sun grow mellower on the floor of the forest. If there was to be an ambush it would be now or never, Becky thought. Ahead of them, to the right, her eyes scanned a huge hemlock sent to the ground by lightning, its branches seared but still leafy enough to hide an army. O’Hara had seen it, too, and had turned his horse southward to skirt it widely.
    At that moment, from behind them, Becky heard the loud, chattering call of a grackle, so distinct, so raucous that it seemed almost to be warning them. As she stiffened Becky saw the flash of an arrow ahead of them to the right, from the blackness of the tom tree.
    “O’Hara!” she screamed.
    Her scream was lost in the thunder of his musket. A second later a bough of the hemlock trembled and one silky brown arm jerked up, quivered and fell, but by that time half a dozen arrows were flying at them.
    “Run for it!” cried O’Hara, and leaning over gave her frightened horse a slap on the flanks.
    Huddled low over their saddles they shook loose the cascade of flying arrows and galloped furiously down the hillside. Behind them Becky heard the hideous war cry of the Indians and knew that if she heard it once more she would go out of her mind with fear. Abruptly the trees came to an end and they clattered over a wide creek bed, dry now, its bottom filled with dusty rocks. Then they were on open land where someone had lived long enough to girdle the trees and plow the ground, but not long enough to plant corn in the fields or to live in the cabin that was black and gutted by fire. As they galloped across the cleared land Becky heard the sound of horses crossing the dry creek bed behind them and knew the Indians were mounted as well. So there had been horses hidden back there in the woods—and Indian horses were fast ones. Hearing a second triumphant whoop from the rear Becky gritted her teeth and prayed.
    Ahead of them lay a thin copse with a dusty cart track running through it and beyond, perhaps a mile away at the end of the road Becky saw the cluster of houses that