"You must take her to the first settlement up the coast.

I will come back to you with Marion." He spoke confidently, as a man who sees his way open clearly before him, and yet as he turned, half running, to the low black shadow of the distant forest he knew that he was beginning a blind fight against fate.
If he could find a hunter's cabin, a fisherman's shanty--a boat! Barely had he disappeared when a voice called to him.

It was Winnsome.
The girl ran up to him holding something in her hand.

It was a pistol.
"You may need it!" she exclaimed.

"We brought two!" Nathaniel reached out hesitatingly, but not to take the weapon.