"Oh, the mountains!" said Patricia. "The dreadful, frowning mountains! When will we be quit of them? When will we reach the level land and the blue water?"
"Before many days, I trust," said Landless. "See, our faces are set to the east—towards home."
She stood in silence for a moment, her face lifted, the color slowly coming back to her cheeks and the light to her eyes, then said suddenly:—
"Did my father send you after me?"
"No, madam."
"Then how are you here?"
He looked at her with a smile. "I broke gaol—and came."
A shadow crossed her face, but it was gone in a moment. "I am very grateful," she said. "You have saved me from worse than death."
"It is I that am thankful," he answered.
They descended the hill in silence and found the Susquehannock, who had preceded them, squatted before a fire which he had kindled upon a flat rock beside one of the innumerable streamlets that wound here and there over the land.