Since the river bank for several miles on either side of the fort was a high cliff, it was almost impossible to take French Mills by surprise, so no sentries were posted, except for one man inside the now closed sally port, and he was stationed there only to open it in the event of a despatch rider arriving during the night. Taking care not to tread on any small fallen branches, Roger advanced until he reached the large stone he had left outside the palisade. There he took from his pocket a whistle made from the wing bone of a turkey, which Leaping Squirrel had given him to signal with. He blew gently on it, so that the sound should not be audible at a distance of more than a dozen paces. It was answered from the other side of the palisade by the low hoot of an owl.
Standing well back, Roger threw the straw palliasse up so that it landed on the spikes of the eight-foot-high stakes forming the palisade. He threw after it one end of the rope, then tied the other end round his waist, so that he could take a strain upon it. A moment later it became taut and he caught the sound of a faint scrambling noise, then Leaping Squirrel's head appeared above the mattress. Wriggling over it, he slid down to Roger's side.
Five minutes later they were with Mary. The two men took the bundles and, in Indian file with Leaping Squirrel leading, they set off, three silent shadows, into the almost dark woods.
For about two hours the moon, filtering through the bare branches of the trees, continued to give them just enough light to see their way. By the time it set they were sufficiently distant from the camp for there to be no risk of their being seen on the open ground along the cliffs by any restless person who had left his quarters to go for a midnight stroll; and, for the remainder of the night, the dim illumination from lingering patches of snow enabled them to press on without any danger of walking over the edge of the cliff. By dawn, although leaning on Roger's arm, Mary had to admit that she could not go a step further. But her dogged courage had enabled them to cover the better part of fifteen miles.
As it was unlikely that Leaping Squirrel's escape would be discovered before dawn, and after that some little time would elapse before a party of trackers could be sent in pursuit, they reckoned that their night march had given them about eight hours' start. Having rested for ten minutes every hour, Mary had been able to keep going, but Roger realised that unless fatigue should overcome her later, they must now sacrifice several hours of their lead; so he called a halt and they made camp.
At ten o'clock, after a good sleep, they roused and
Roger set about collecting sticks so that they could get a fire going and cook a meal. But Leaping Squirrel stopped him, giving the disquieting reason that they were in Mohawk country, and the smoke of a fire might be seen by an Indian out hunting. If that happened, he would fetch others, and they would be lucky if they were not scalped and killed.
Having made do on cold food, they set off again, re-entering the forest, as the river curved away in a great arc at the place where they had slept, and Leaping Squirrel told them it would save many miles if they cut across it. After they had penetrated for some way among the trees, the Indian asked them to wait where they were for a while. He then padded to and fro, sometimes disappearing for several minutes; but at length he beckoned them to follow him. When they had done so for two hundred yards or more, he pointed to a gash about five feet up on a big tree, where the bark had been chipped away. Turning east, he walked on some distance, then pointed to a similar gash on another big tree, and told them these were the marks by which he had blazed a trail on his outward journey, so that he could easily find his way back.
Just as evening was closing in, he stopped beside one of the blazed trees which also bore a buzzard feather wedged in the bark. With a stout stick, which he had picked up an hour or so earlier, he began to dig in the earth behind the tree, and soon turned up a foot-long package. Unwrapping a covering of elk skin, he showed them a chunk of dried bear meat and some strips of pemmican. Roger was delighted at this unexpected addition to their supplies as, although they had brought all the food Mary had had in the cabin, he had feared it would not last them for more than a few days; and his pistols were useless for hunting, owing to their short range.
After eating, they slept for some hours. When they awoke, moonlight lit the glade, so they made the most of it to cover several more miles; then, when the moon set, they slept again.
Half-way through their second day's trek, Leaping Squirrel, who always led the party, suddenly halted, swung round and put his finger to his lips to enjoin silence. He then signed to them to take cover among some blackberry bushes,-which were the only low-growing vegetation within sight. Reluctantly, but seeing, from the alarmed expression on the Indian's face, that danger threatened, they waded in among the long, prickly stems and crouched down among them.
For several minutes Roger and Mary could hear nothing, although they listened intently. Then they caught the faint sound of snapping twigs. Peering out from their hiding place they saw a dozen figures some twenty yards away. It was a party of Mohawk warriors, moving silently in single file and resembling a band of gliding spectres.
Fortunately they were heading in the direction of the river, but a good ten minutes elapsed before Leaping Squirrel signed to his companions that they might leave their cover. They emerged from the tangle of bushes with several nasty scratches, and Roger's buckskin leggings had been badly torn on a cat briar.
Roger and Mary feared that the Indians they had glimpsed were trackers sent out from French Mills. Leaping Squirrel reassured them that the men were a party of hunters intent on their own business, and to be avoided only because they might have proved hostile. But, he added grimly, their lead must be lessening, as they had to take much longer rests than the trackers would need, and the time had come when they must try to hide their trail by wading in a lake which he knew lay a few miles head.
That evening they came to it and, for a quarter of an hour, splashed through the bitterly cold water along its shore, entering and leaving it several times to confuse their pursuers.
Now that the danger of capture had become ominously nearer, Roger could not keep his mind off that possibility. It would certainly mean death for Leaping Squirrel. There was no way of preventing that. But what would happen to himself and Mary after they had been marched back to French Mills?
Colonel Jason could hardly have failed to connect their disappearance with Leaping Squirrel's escape on the same night. In any case, their being captured with him would be indisputable evidence of it. What, Roger wondered, was the penalty for assisting an enemy spy to escape? Almost certainly a sentence of several months in prison. But would matters end even there? At French Mills there was no prison, so he would be sent down to Albany, or perhaps New York. A trial would also lead to an investigation of his past. It would emerge that the document stating him to be a surveyor in the employ of the Ministry of Rivers and Forests was a forgery; and, quite possibly, that he was an Englishman. The discovery of his nationality, together with the fact that he had secured a guide known to be a spy to get him over the frontier into Canada would lead to the assumption that he, too, was a spy. The possible result could be, not months, but years in prison, or worse.
And what of Mary? It was hardly likely that they would imprison her. But she would be stranded. As the van Wycks knew the truth about them, they would almost certainly help her. Even so, she could not live on them indefinitely. She would have to take some dreary job in a shop, or become a dressmaker, and live in constant misery at the thought of him in prison.