“Who are you?” he cried breathlessly.  Then, without waiting for an answer, he caught her up and bore her along with him.  “Don’t speak,” he panted in her ear.  “The Indians are upon us, but we’re almost home!”

Then all at once a log-house appeared beside the path, and someone was holding the door ajar, and a white face was peering out.  The door was flung open wide as they came up, the man rushed in, set Letitia down, shut the door with a crash, and shot some heavy bolts at top and bottom.

Letitia was so dazed that she scarcely knew what happened for the next few minutes.  She saw there a pale-faced woman and three girls, one about her own age, two a little younger.  She saw, to her great amazement, the horse tied in the corner.  She saw that the door was of mighty thickness, and, moreover, hasped with iron and studded with great iron nails, so that some rattling blows that were rained upon it presently had no effect.  She saw three guns set in loopholes in the walls, and the man, the woman, and the girl of her own age firing them, with great reports which made the house quake, while the younger girls raced from one to the other with powder and bullets.  Still, she was not sure she saw right, it was all so strange.  She stood back in a corner, out of the way, and waited, trembling, and at last the fierce yells outside died away, and the firing stopped.

“They have fled,” said the woman with a thankful sigh.

“Yes,” said the man, “we are delivered once more out of the hands of the enemy.”

“We must not unbar the door or the shutters yet,” said the woman anxiously.  “I will get the supper by candle-light.”

Then Letitia realized what she had not done before, that all the daylight was shut out of the house; that they had for light only one tallow candle and a low hearth fire.  It was very cold.  Letitia began to shiver with cold as well as fear.

Suddenly the woman turned to her with motherly kindness and curiosity.  “Who is this little damsel whom you rescued, husband?” said she.

“She must speak for herself,” replied her husband, smiling.  “I thought at first she was neighbor Adams’s Phoebe, but I see she is not.”

“What is your name, little girl?” asked the woman, while the three little girls looked wonderingly at the new-comer.

“Letitia Hopkins,” replied Letitia in a small, scared voice.

“Letitia Hopkins, did you say?” asked the woman doubtfully.

“Yes, ma’am.”

They all stared at her, then at one another.

“It is very strange,” said the woman finally, with a puzzled, half-alarmed look.  “Letitia Hopkins is my name.”

“And it is mine, too,” said the eldest girl.

Letitia gave a great jump.  There was something very strange about this.  Letitia Hopkins was a family name.  Her grandmother, her father’s mother, had been Letitia Hopkins, and she had always heard that the name could be traced back in the same order for generations, as the Hopkinses had intermarried.  She looked up, trembling, at the man who had saved her from the Indians.