Johnson did not speak.

“He’s not all alone,” a voice said, as Scott hurried off. “Tam’s with him.”

Johnson turned.

The speaker was a small girl seated atop a grey mare. Until that moment, Johnson had been too preoccupied to notice her as anything other than background scenery.

“Libby?” the preacher enquired cautiously. He turned to Johnson. “My daughter, Colonel.”

“Tam?” Johnson said.

“The boy’s dog,” De Witt explained.

Johnson cast his mind back to when Lieutenant Wyatt had returned to the Hall. The boy had been over by the tethering line. There had been a dog there with him then, some breed of hound; big, with shaggy fur, a typical farm dog, no doubt used to herd sheep or cattle – children, too, probably.

“Anyone seen the dog?” Johnson asked.

De Witt and his wife shook their heads. “Can’t say as we have,” the pastor said.

There was a collective shaking of heads from the other civilians in earshot.

Johnson dismounted. Careful not to intimidate the girl, he smiled as he walked towards her. “Hello, Libby. I’m Colonel Johnson. So, you’re a friend of Matthew’s, then, are you?”

The girl rewarded the question with a shy nod.

Johnson made a slight bow. “Well, I am most honoured to make your acquaintance. Y’know, I’ve a daughter, too. She’s called Mary. She has blonde hair and she’s very pretty, just like you. She has a baby brother. He’s called William, after his grandfather.”

Johnson felt the lump rise in his throat, as it did whenever he thought of his children, for there had been a second boy, christened John, born five months after Johnson’s escape from the valley. As a babe in arms when Johnson’s wife, aided by friends, made her own escape from the family home, the infant, along with his older brother and sister, had survived the flight from Albany to New York and thence to Montreal, only to succumb to a fever a few months before his second birthday. There wasn’t a day that passed when Johnson didn’t bring his dead son’s face to mind or think of the first time he’d held him in his arms.

“Tell me, Libby,” he said, blinking away the memory and speaking softly, “did you see where Matthew went?”

He doubted the child had any concept of time. It made more sense, therefore, to ask her if she had seen the boy leave rather than to enquire when he had left the column. That’s if she’d seen anything in the first place, of course.

The girl regarded him solemnly for several seconds; then her gaze dropped.

“If you know something, Libby,” Esther De Witt urged, her eyes red-rimmed, “you tell the colonel. There’s a good girl.”

The girl hesitated, then, in a smaller voice, she said tentatively, “Tam ran away. Matthew went to look for him.”