which, blanketed and tethered, had been waiting patiently in the rain for just such an emergency as this. One of the young officers, however, found himself deprived of a horse, for Mehitable was in the saddle before him.
"Ride double!" she shouted at him through the storm.
Never as long as she lived, would Mehitable forget the wild ride. Straight away from the Condit farmhouse to the north, on the Second Road, they rode, then they swerved into the Northfield Road that led up over the mountains to the little settlement of Northfield. But just before they left the Second Road, they met a solitary horseman riding in the opposite direction. With his head sunk into the protection of his upturned collar and his hat pulled low over his forehead, he did not appear to see them until the party were upon him then Mehitable wanted to laugh at the visible start he gave, as they dashed past him. Had she glanced over her shoulder, she might have seen him rein in his horse to stare after them malevolently; but she was riding low in her saddle, her face along the horse's neck, guiding him more by low-voiced commands than by the bit.
The road was mounting upward, now, through the dense forest that stood, threatening and gloom-filled in the stormy twilight, on either side. The others, not so sure of the rocky way—indeed, it had narrowed into the inevitable cart path—labored far behind, so that at last Mehitable, not to be too far in advance, halted her horse and blinked the raindrops from her eyelashes to glance around her. As she did so she had the eld
