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Then she gave a scream of surprise and terror, and stood still staring. She did not dare stir nor breathe. She was not in the open 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 home!”

Then all at once a log-house appeared beside the path, and someone was holding the door ajar, and a white face was peering out. The door was flung open wide as they came up, the man rushed in, set Letitia down, shut the door with a crash, and shot some heavy bolts at top and bottom.

Letitia was so dazed that she scarcely knew what happened for the next few minutes. She saw there a pale-faced woman and three girls, one about her own age, two a little younger. She saw, to her great amazement, the horse tied in the corner. She saw that the door was of mighty thickness, and, moreover, hasped with iron and studded with great iron nails, so that some rattling blows that were rained upon it presently had no effect. She saw three guns set in loopholes in the walls, and the man, the woman, and the girl of her own age firing them, with great reports which made the house quake, while the younger girls raced from one to the other with powder and bullets. Still, she was not sure she saw right, it was all so strange. She stood back in a corner, out of the way, and waited, trembling, and at last the fierce yells outside died away, and the firing stopped.

“They have fled,” said the woman with a thankful sigh.

“Yes,” said the man, “we are delivered once more out of the hands of the enemy.”

“We must not unbar the door or the shutters yet,” said the woman anxiously. “I will get the supper by candle-light.”

Then Letitia realized what she had not done before, that all the daylight was shut out of the house; that they had for light only one tallow candle and a low hearth fire. It was very cold. Letitia began to shiver with cold as well as fear.

Suddenly the woman turned to her with motherly kindness and curiosity. “Who is this little damsel whom you rescued, husband?” said she.