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150, trusting to luck to meet none who would question, and so escaping out of the Wachoosett country ere pursuit reached him. But second thoughts showed the futility of that  design. Even had he been fresh and untired, he could not have traveled at a speed great  enough to elude the Indian runners. No, if the English did not come shortly and he was  still free, he would make his way through the  forest at what haste he might until darkness  and then take advantage of the trail.

Anxiously he waited and watched. Every stirring of the leaves brought his heart into  his throat. He was parched for water, but dared not leave the trail to seek it. An hour passed and hope passed with it, for he was  convinced that his friends, did they mean to  travel back that day, would have made an  early start and ere this have passed his hiding-place. Either, then, they had not come yesterday to the village or they had gone by  while he slept. He could have wept with disappointment. Hunger began to make itself felt, and he crawled a few yards to where a  black birch grew and broke some twigs from  it and gnawed them. He had but settled in his place again when his eyes, fixed on the  trail to the north, shouted hope to his heart.