f Minervy Sue, their daughter.

No one touched a space deeply filled with straw, but now and
again Medora glanced back at it with the dawning of a smile in her
grief-stricken face that cold, nor fear, nor despair could wholly
overcast. Three small heads, all golden and curly, all pink-cheeked and
fair, all blissfully slumbering, rested there as if they had been so
many dolls packed away thus for fear of breaking. But they had no
other couch than the straw, for Ross Gilhooley had not spared the
feather-beds, and the little cabin at the Notch was now half full of the
fluff ripped out by his sharp knife from the split ticks.

Down the mountain the fugitives went, as silent as their shadows; and at
last, when one might hardly know if it were the sheen of the moon that
still illuminated the wan and wintry scene, or the reflection from the
snow, or the dawning of the dark-gray day, the river came in sight, all
a rippling, steely expanse under the chill wind between its ice-girt
crags and snowy banks.

The oxen went down to the ford in a lumbering run. Bruce sprang upon the
tailboard to ride, the dogs chased the cow and calf to the crossing. The
wheels grated ominously against great submerged boulders; the surging
waves rose almost to the wagon-bed; the wind struck aslant the immense,
cumbrous cover, threatening to capsize it; and, suddenly, in the midst
of the transit, a sound, as clear as a bugle in the rare icy air, as
searchingly sweet!

All were motionless for an instant, doubtful, anxious, listening--only
the wintry wind with its keen sibilance; only the dash of the swift
current; only the grating of the wheels on the sand as the oxen reached
the opposite margin!

But hark, again! A clear tenor voice in the fag end of an old song:

"An' my bigges' bottle war my bes' friend,
An' my week's work was all at an end!"

It issued from beyond the right fork of the road in advance, and an
instant panic ensued. Discovery was hard upon them. Their laborious
device was brought to naught should any eye espy them in their hasty
flight to the State line. It had not seemed impossible that ere the day
should dawn they might be far away in those impenetrable forests
where one may journey many a league, meeting naught more inimical or
speculative than bear or deer. It still was worth the effort.

With a sudden spring from the tailboard of the wagon Bruce Gilhooley
reached the yoke, fiercely goading the oxen onward. With