Pearce gnawed the inside of his lip. “We’ve a witness: Corporal Travis. He was out taking a piss some time after midnight. Dark, of course, but he could see the wagon up by the hut. In the early hours, other men reported hearing shots in the distance. Only when the alarm was raised did they put two and two together. Our best estimate is three, maybe four hours ago.”

“We’re assuming they’ll be heading north?” Walker asked.

“Correct.”

“How well do they know the country?”

Pearce looked at Quade.

“I’m not sure,” Quade said.

Walker moved briskly to the table, the Indian at his shoulder. Pearce and Quade followed. Among the papers were several maps. Walker selected one and spread it out. Quade, looking over his shoulder, recognized the outline of Champlain and the north-western part of the state, most of which was blank space. There were shaded areas running north to south to indicate mountainous terrain, while several spidery lines radiating outwards from the west shore of the lake were clearly rivers and tributaries. Dark bean-shaped blobs stuck to the ends of the rivers were, presumably, less significant bodies of water; they could have been small lakes or large ponds for all the information the map provided. None were named. Very few towns featured on the map. Plattsburg was annotated, as was Willsborough to the south and Chazy and Champlain to the north. A solid, inked line struck out north-west from Plattsburg to a dot on the map, marked Chataugay, which looked to be in the middle of nowhere. There, the line forked. One fork continued west, terminating at a spot marked Bombay. The other veered south-west through dots marked Malone and Hopkinton before disappearing off the edge of the map. No other settlements were shown.

“Military road,” Pearce said in answer to Quade’s frown. “Built along old Indian trails. Not as substantial as it looks. Not much more than a bridleway in parts. Right, Amos?”

The bearded man nodded absently and tapped the map just above the dot marked Champlain, where another roughly drawn line ran from a point at the top end of Lake Champlain west to the St Lawrence River. Tracing it with his fingertip, he said, “The border. Runs all the way to St Regis. Ain’t no fences, though. Settlements neither. North or south of the line, all you’re looking at is wilderness. That’s hard country, nothing but backwoods and rivers. Not even people. Hard going for those that know it. Damned sight harder for them that don’t.”

“You’re saying we can catch them?” Quade said.

Walker continued to look at the map. “I’m saying maybe.”

“The weather might help,” Quade ventured. “If the snow persists. It should slow them down.”

“Might do,” Walker agreed, nodding thoughtfully. “We know anything about them?”

Pearce looked at Quade. “Major? You came up from Greenbush. What can you tell us?”

“So far as Lawrence is concerned, nothing.”