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march, another party of Indians joined them—a raiding party like themselves, six Indians returning from the Pennsylvania frontier. They brought with them one white captive, a young man of twenty.

    Molly stared at the newcomer and hope—the hope of escape returned. He was a full-grown man, he was strong, he could speak English, he would know how to help. Her eager thoughts tumbled over themselves in anticipation. When they were left alone for a moment, she questioned him. But the young man sat dejected, and exhausted from the weight of the heavy burden on his back. He looked up at her with blank eyes and did not answer. And Molly knew that he was more in need of help than she; that only she could help him.

3
Fort Duquesne
    O H M OLLY, ARE WE never going to stop walking?” asked Davy, looking down at his feet. The once bright-colored embroidery on his moccasins was faded now and covered with mud.
    “I wish I knew,” said Molly sadly. “I feel as if we’ve been walking all our lives…But see how tough our feet have grown!”
    “Why did they make us run so fast?” asked Davy.
    “They were afeard of being followed, I think,” replied Molly “Like as not they knew there were white men on our trail. Like as not John and Tom ran to Neighbor Dixon and he gathered the neighbors from Marsh Creek Hollow together…”
    “Oh, why didn’t they come to save us?” wailed Davy.
    “They couldn’t catch up,” answered Molly slowly, “we…went…so fast…”
    She stole a glance at the young man captive, whose coming had brought back her hope. If only she could rouse him…He talked a little now, as they walked down the mountain side. He said his name was Nicholas Porter and he came from Piney Mountain near Shippens Town, only a few miles as the crow flies from Marsh Creek Hollow.
    He told how one morning his mother wanted squirrel for pot-pie. He insisted that squirrel pot-pie, made by his mother, was the best dish in the land. He told how he went out hunting to take a few squirrels for pot-pie and how he’d been caught like a squirrel himself, by hunters stronger than he. He kept on talking about the squirrel pot-pie that his mother would never make again and he himself would never, never eat. He told the tale so often that Molly wearied of it. If only he could forget his suffering—there were more important things to think of. If only he could fasten his mind on the idea of escape…
    All the time now the slopes went downward, as the highest mountains were left behind. Though the party moved at more moderate pace and no attempt was made to conceal the trail, they rarely paused or stopped. A day came when the hills behind were but a blue haze in the distance and they walked across a wooded plain.
    At the brink of a steep hill they halted to gaze on a wandering stream below—but only for a moment. Down the rough, precipitous trail they plunged to the red clay shore of Turtle Creek. The current was strong and the waters were high from recent springtime freshets, but not even an angry stream could hold them back. The Indians brought out a bark canoe which they found concealed near the shore and the creek was crossed in safety. Another climb up the steep hill opposite, and the party came out on the plain again, following in single file the trail that skirted the shore of the Allegheny River.
    One day in mid-afternoon they saw ahead across the flat river bottoms a large log stockade. To Molly the sight was welcome. She wondered what fort it was. Eagerly she watched the lips of Frenchmen and Indians, hoping to catch its name. Then she heard it—two words she had heard before on the lips of the white trader, Old Fallenash. There, before her, on the point of land between the arms of two great rivers, the Allegheny and the Monongahela, touched by the afternoon sun, lay Fort Duquesne. This, she knew, was the fort which the French had built only a few years before, when they claimed for their own the whole vast territory