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 knees and before she could resume her flight upon foot the two men were beside her.

"How now, mistress?" sneered Hawtree. "Art caught again?"

"Let me go!" commanded the girl furiously, as his fingers caught her wrist in a rough grasp. But paying no attention to her, the rascal dragged her to one side of the road, where he consulted with his shifty-eyed companion.

"I know of a cabin," Mehitable heard Squire Briggs say. Twill do until"

His voice sank. Mehitable, standing hopeless now, felt her heart contract. Until—what? she asked herself. Her mind refused to believe the conclusion to that question, despite what she had overheard in in front of the meeting house. Then the Tories turned toward her and, each grasping an arm, they half led, half carried her into the swamp bordering the road.

Afterward she reproached herself for not fighting bitterly every step of the way, making her captors pay in the way of scratches and bites from her sharp teeth. Dazed, however by her sudden misfortune, she stumbled along meekly enough until Hawtree, noticing her head turning frantically in an effort to see the path they were following into the depths of the swamp, laughed tauntingly.

"Ye know now how I felt Christmas morn when that jackanapes traitor, Von Garten, took me prisoner for the while," he mocked.