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Mira, grabbing Laura’s hand.
    “I don’t want you, anyway, Mira,” Elizabeth grumbled. “Goodbye, Laura.” She turned and marched sedately back to the main path.
    When Laura saw Elizabeth’s flat straw hat disappear behind a knoll, she walked over to the woods and shouted, “Hello there.”
    The sun, now at high noon, was warm, and Mira happily picked wild violets while Laura ran on into the edge of the woods. Was Red really there? She stood still in the shadows of the trees, listening for the scampering sounds of small animals.
    “Not so loud,” said a raspy voice behind her. She spun around and saw an unshaven man standing a few inches away.
    “Who are you?” Laura shot back. The man was carrying a musket in one hand with a powder horn slung over his right shoulder and, in his other hand, he had their food basket. At the sound of movement between the trees, Laura turned again. Another man with scraggly brown hair came toward her. Laura thought of running home, but she did not want to leave Mira. She could not outrun these men if she carried her sister. Besides, they had her basket, which she was not going to give up without an explanation.
    Just as the second shaggy-haired man approached her, Red came running up behind them. “This is Laura,” he said. “She’ll not give you away.”
    Laura was relieved to see Red, but she backed away from the men a little. “Why did you take our food?” Laura stared furiously at Red. She wouldn’t mind feeding Red, but she didn’t want to feed two strange men who might be dangerous.
    “I went to the other side of the woods to look aroun’. I just got back.”
    “But your friends took our food.” Her voice trembled. Who did they think they were, anyway? The first man settled himself down on a tree trunk, tore the white linen cloth from the top of the basket, and threw it on the ground.
    “There’s lots of food there,” said Laura. “Help yourself. But you’d better leave the basket for me to take home or my father will be asking questions. I’ll be back for it soon.” She stood staring at the men for a few seconds.
    The first man was eating a turkey drumstick with one hand and one of Bett’s delicious buns with the other. The other man was chewing with his mouth wide open on a huge piece of white meat and a sandwich—both at the same time.
    Laura glared at Red and motioned him over to a beech tree a few feet away from his rude companions. “You’d better explain yourself and those men fast, Red.”
    “I just found them there—honest,” Red began.
    “I don’t believe you, Red.”
    “Well, they are my friends. I sorta told them you’d help us get food. They haven’t eaten for three days.”
    “Are they Shay’s men?”
    “I’ll not be tellin’ on my friends.”
    “They are, aren’t they!”
    “If you promise you won’t tell about ’em, they’ll leave tonight, and no one’ll be the wiser. I need your promise, though. And I’ll vouch for you.”
    “Do they know who my father is? He’d go after anyone who harmed his daughters.”
    “No, they don’t know who your father is, and I certainly wouldn’t want them to find out.”
    “Why? They say the fugitives are afraid of my father.”
    “You’d be in even more danger if they knew. There’s a lot of them bitter toward your father. And remember, both those men are armed. It’s best they don’t know.”
    “I want to leave as soon as they’ll let us. I suppose we’re being watched.”
    “You are that! Do you promise me you’ll not reveal their identity?”
    “I promise.”
    “Cross your heart and hope to die?”
    “I didn’t tell on you before, did I? And I won’t tell on them if they’ll just go and leave us alone.”
    Red scanned the fields and glanced back at the men. “Come dark, they’ll be away from here, but I’d like to stay in your barn overnight.”
    As Red walked over to tell the men his plans, Laura wondered what part he was playing in the rebellion now, and why