Girl in a Buckskin

then; a visit to the Cock and Bull, and a ride to Mr. Smeed’s as well.
    “Very well then,” said Mr. Smeed, “you may as well know that Miss Pumroy has pledged herself to marry me.”
    “Oho, so that’s it,” said Mr. King. “But not too willingly, it strikes me.”
    “Indeed, is that how it strikes you, sir?” said Mr. Smeed coldly. “It does not strike me so. It’s her brother who’s at the bottom of this, I promise you. He has tired of the stocks and the whipping post and is making a run for it, dragging the poor child with him.”
    “And doing a tolerable job of it, too,” said Hob grimly, “for there’s not so much as a sign of ’em here.”
    “Come now,” said Mr. Leggett, “there must be some sign. Look closer, man—Mr. Smeed’s gold pieces are almost in your pocket.”
    They moved slowly away, Hob Olcott holding his torch close to the ground while Mr. King led his horse for him. Their voices had grown very dim when Becky heard the cry of a grackle almost at her feet and glancing down saw Eseck standing at the base of the tree. He signaled for her to climb down from the tree.
    “Come,” he whispered, “this is our chance.”
    “But it’s madness,” she whispered back, sliding down to join him. “They’re close by—they’ll hear us—”
    Shaking his head he beckoned to her to get down on hands and knees, and in this manner they left behind them the great hemlock tree and the party of horsemen.
    They had been walking all night and half the day and still the mountains lay ahead of them like a green cloud on the horizon. It made the field they stood on seem flat and skimpy as if the green had been peeled from it like bark to show the insides of the earth. They had left the river behind them at dawn and with it the final outpost in western Massachusetts. Remembering the cabin they had skirted some hours ago, the woman bent over her washtub under the tree, the man plowing his field, Rebecca tried to make of it a picture that she might keep forever in her mind. Because it would be a long time before she saw a cabin of cut logs again, and longer still before she saw another white woman.
    And the woman never knew I was there, she thought. Perhaps even yet she is wondering why the dog barked; perhaps she called to her man and went into the cabin to bring down the long rifle from over the mantel, thinking of Indians in the forest. But the musket would never be hung over the mantel, she realized, not out here in these outpost farms. The gun would be oiled and sitting propped up in a handy place.
    That woman would have been happy to see me, Rebecca thought; and I should have been happy to see her, too.
    Eseck dropped his hand from his eyes and nodded. “Over there,” he said, and picking up the musket led the way down the hill.
    Over where? Becky wondered. What did her brother see beside a west wind skimming the sky of clouds, and the forest waiting for them full of trees and Indians and hemlock swamps. It was hard to know what Eseck was thinking now that they had left the towns behind. He had withdrawn inside of himself and his face was closed.
    “What’s over there?” she asked him.
    “Trail west,” he said over his shoulder.
    “How can you tell?”
    He turned and looked at her impatiently. “I don’t know. It’s there, that’s all.”
    She nodded, almost stumbling over a rock in her haste to keep up with him. Her weariness lay upon her like a weight, but Eseck said they must reach the forest before they stopped. Then if anyone came this far searching for them they’d have a place to hide. She knew he meant Joshua Smeed. No one else would care enough to ride so far unless it was Mrs. Leggett, who would no longer be able to say, Rebecca, do this, Rebecca, do that. By now they would know that Eseck had gotten her away, although to this moment she did not know how. The pine needles still clung to her breeches from crawling on her stomach through the woods, Eseck hiding her from time to time behind a log or in a hole while he crept back to cover the signs of their trail. By now they would guess that Eseck was taking her north, into Indian country, and she supposed they would soon be given up for dead. It would be nice to be given up, she thought, even as dead—far better to be dead, anyway, than to be coaxed and wheedled and browbeaten into marrying Joshua Smeed with his lips thin as the whip he carried.
    “Never mind the trail we leave now,” Eseck said, seeing her glance