But no one came down the corn rows looking for them. "They won't dream we're still so near the house," David assured her in his low, comforting voice.
When it was quite dark, David spoke again: "We'll make a break for it now, Sally. I know this part of the country well. My grandfather's farm adjoins this one, with only a fence between the two hay meadows. We can cut across his farm, giving the house and barns a wide berth. Then we'll strike a bit of timberland that belongs to old man Cosgrove. That will bring us out on a little-traveled road that leads to Stanton, twenty-two miles away. Think you can make it, Sally?"
She hugged her bundle tight to her breast and reached for his hand, which he had withdrawn as he rose to his feet. "Of course," she answered simply. "I'm not afraid, David."
"You're a plucky kid," David said gruffly. "I'll lead the way. Let me know if I set too fast a pace."
Buoyed up by his praise, Sally trotted almost happily at his heels. She refused to let her mind dwell on the horrors of the day, or to reach out into the future. Indeed, her imagination was incapable of picturing a future for a Sally Ford whose life was not regulated by orphanage routine. She held only the present fast in her mind, passionately grateful for the strong, swiftly striding figure before her, unwilling for this strange night-time adventure to end.
"Thirsty, Sally?" David's voice called out of the darkness.
Suddenly she knew that she was both thirsty and hungry, for she had not eaten since the twelve o'clock dinner. A cool breeze was rustling the leaves of the trees, and under that whispering rustle came the cool, sweet murmur of a brook. She crouched beside David on the bank of the tiny stream and thirstily drank from his cupped hands. Then he dipped his handkerchief in the water and gently swabbed her face, his hands as tender as Sally had fancied a mother's must be.
The going was more dogged, less mysteriously thrilling when they had at last reached the dirt road that was eventually to lead them to Stanton, a town of four or five thousand inhabitants, the town in which the woman who had brought her twelve years ago to the orphanage had lived. Days before Sally had memorized the address before destroying the bit of paper on which Miss Pond, out of the kindness of her heart, had copied Sally's record from the orphanage files.