Free Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen

all, to keep going.
    Samuel nodded.
    What had Caleb said? Oh yes, New York was British.
    But the Americans still held Philadelphia, the center of the new government. Had his mother and father come by here and seen this sign? Did they know that safety and refuge were just forty miles away, and then did they have to go on to New York?
    He shook his head.
    “I should … I ought to take you into Philadelphia, where it’s safe, and find a place for you.”
    “No.”
    “But—”
    “No. I ain’t going to leave you. You’re the only family I have. It won’t help to leave me someplace because I’ll just run and follow you. No matter what you say. We’re going to find our folks. That’s all there is to it. We’re going to New York.”
    “What I was going to say—”
    “Together.”
    “—was that it would take too long to go down there and come back—six or seven days—so I guess we’ll stick together.”
    “Good. That’s settled.”
    Samuel almost smiled. She looked so ragged—her dress was indescribably dirty and so was her face. Her hairstuck out at odd angles. The dirt was caked on her legs, and her feet looked like shoe leather—and yet she was ready to do what had to be done. I’m proud, he thought, to have you as a sister.
    “All right then,” he said. “Let’s go.”
    They had a stroke of luck after they turned toward New York. Later that day they saw a farm with fresh corn in the field. They crept into the edge of the field and took enough ears for dinner.
    Just after leaving the field, back in the woods alongside the trail, they heard an awful racket coming up the road from the rear. Something on wheels was clanging and clanking and rattling along. They were far enough back in the thickest part of the undergrowth so they couldn’t see what it was. It stopped nearby.
    All was quiet, and then Samuel heard dogs panting. Before he and Annie could move, two black-and-white mostly collie dogs came up to them in the brush, looked at them each for a moment—directly into their eyes—and gently tried to push them out toward the road, using their shoulders against Samuel’s and Annie’s legs.
    “Hey!” Samuel whispered. “Leave off!”
    He heard a laugh.
    “You might as well come out of there,” a coarse, deep voice shouted. “I know right where you are and I’ve got a two-gauge swivel gun aimed at you.”
    “You stay here,” Samuel whispered to Annie. “I’ll see what’s going on.”
    But no, she was not going to stay, and they both stood and walked out of the brush, the collies nudging them along.
    A huge freight wagon stood on the road, so stacked up with all sorts of everything—from bundles of rags to loops of tin pots tied up like garlands, to two saddles, to barrels and buckets and a rocking chair—that it looked enormous: a junk pile on wheels being pulled by two scruffy mules.
    “How’s your day?” the man on the wagon asked, spitting, and in such a thick Scottish brogue that it was difficult to understand him. “I’m Abner McDougal, tinker at large. The two dogs are William and Wallace—named after a Scottish hero.” He saw Samuel’s rifle and he held up his hands. “Don’t shoot, I was making a jest about the swivel gun. I’m not armed, as you can see—don’t believe in shooting things.”
    He seemed to be dressed in sewn-together rags and looked as untidy as the junk he was carrying. His voice had a horrible rasping sound, like a steel shovel edge hitting rocks in gravel, and he was absolutely covered in unkempt gray hair. It was almost impossible to see his face for the hair, and the lower part of his beard was soaked with tobacco stains from dribbled spit.
    “I’m Samuel,” Samuel said, “and this is Annie.”
    Abner nodded and then looked at the dogs, which hadmoved in front of the mules and were peering down the trail in the direction of New York.
    “Get in the back of the wagon,” Abner said.
    “What?”
    “Get in the back of the wagon. Hide the