“They won’t catch me just yet,” he reasoned, as he sped onward. “And perhaps I’ll soon come to some cross-roads, where I can give them the slip.”
Once came another shot but it did not reach the fugitive, and only made him urge his steed along at a better speed. Then the road began to lead downward from the ridge, and soon Henry found his horse plowing and panting through snow a foot deep, and steadily growing deeper.
Here was cause for fresh alarm, and now the youth’s heart beat anxiously. A turn had hidden the troopers from view, but he could hear them shouting to each other, for the horse of one had stumbled over a log, and thrown his rider headlong into a snowbank.
“They’ve got a chance to get up to me now,” thought Henry, as he gazed at his almost exhausted animal. “Oh, if only we could get to some spot where there wasn’t so much snow!”
Another turn was ahead, and Henry made for this, hoping it would disclose something to his advantage. It did, for here were three other roads, running in as many different directions.
“Too bad to give up the horse, but I guess it has got to be done,” he thought. He turned the horse up one of the side roads and brought him to a standstill under a low-hanging tree. Then he leaped into the branches and gave the steed a smart slap with the flat side of the sabre. “Up with you!” he cried. “Get along!”
Stung by the blow and urged on by the words, the horse gave a leap forward, and started off at a good pace that soon took him out of sight. Then Henry climbed up into the tree and lay among the branches, hardly daring to breathe.
It was not long before the young soldier heard the French troopers at the cross-roads. They came to a halt, examined the ground, and then put on after the riderless horse, passing directly beneath the tree in which the fugitive was hiding.
“That was a lucky idea,” thought Henry, and as soon as the party had passed he slid down out of the tree. He did not take to the road at once, but made a détour through the brushwood, to a point on one of the other roads a quarter of a mile away. Then he struck out bravely once again in the direction of the river.
Henry found trudging along with a knapsack on his back far from easy, and at the end of an hour he was glad enough to seek the shelter of some rocks and trees and rest. The sun was shining brightly, and at a long distance he could make out the frozen surface of the St. Lawrence, glistening in patches like a mirror.