One of these, a little girl, had already died by the way, and her frantic mother began to reproach Susannah, wailing that if the child had not been saying her texts to the elder she would not have been a mark for the enemy.
The men were cutting down saplings to make place for a camp.

It was their intention to remain, going back under the cover of night to get food and blankets from the houses, if they were not pillaged and burned, going back in any case to bury their dead at the first streak of dawn.
The Danite turned to Susannah.

"I guess, ma'am, neither you nor I have got any business to take us back, and there's enough of the brothers here to do the work." Susannah went on with the young man through hour after hour of the afternoon farther and farther into the unknown fastnesses of the wood.
They left behind them the low thicket of second growth, and penetrated into an uncleared Missouri forest..