ir pistols with the grasp of despair. The
pursuers gained on them fast; the carriage made a sudden turn, and
brought them near a ledge of a steep overhanging rock, that rose in an
isolated ridge or clump in a large lot, which was, all around it, quite
clear and smooth. This isolated pile, or range of rocks, rose up black
and heavy against the brightening sky, and seemed to promise shelter and
concealment. It was a place well known to Phineas, who had been familiar
with the spot in his hunting days; and it was to gain this point he had
been racing his horses.

"Now for it!" said he, suddenly checking his horses, and springing from
his seat to the ground. "Out with you, in a twinkling, every one, and up
into these rocks with me. Michael, thee tie thy horse to the wagon, and
drive ahead to Amariah's and get him and his boys to come back and talk
to these fellows."

In a twinkling they were all out of the carriage.

"There," said Phineas, catching up Harry, "you, each of you, see to the
women; and run, _now_ if you ever _did_ run!"

They needed no exhortation. Quicker than we can say it, the whole party
were over the fence, making with all speed for the rocks, while Michael,
throwing himself from his horse, and fastening the bridle to the wagon,
began driving it rapidly away.

"Come ahead," said Phineas, as they reached the rocks, and saw in the
mingled starlight and dawn, the traces of a rude but plainly marked
foot-path leading up among them; "this is one of our old hunting-dens.
Come up!"

Phineas went before, springing up the rocks like a goat, with the boy
in his arms. Jim came second, bearing his trembling old mother over
his shoulder, and George and Eliza brought up the rear. The party of
horsemen came up to the fence, and, with mingled shouts and oaths,
were dismounting, to prepare to follow them. A few moments' scrambling
brought them to the top of the ledge; the path then passed between a
narrow defile, where only one could walk at a time, till suddenly they
came to a rift or chasm more than a yard in breadth, and beyond which
lay a pile of rocks, separate from the rest of the ledge, standing full
thirty feet high, with its sides steep and perpendicular as those of
a castle. Phineas easily leaped the chasm, and sat down the boy on a
smooth, flat platform of crisp white moss, that covered the top of the
rock.

"Over with you!" he called; "spring, now, once, for your lives!" said
he, as one after another sp