By the end of the first hour, life in the boat had become routine. The shouts had been lost in the distance and there was only the quiet river and the silent woods and fields and the regular splash of oars.

For weeks they had been in training, and now all six were hardened and worked well together. Lewis, who had designed the boat, stood forward on guard against unexpected hazards. Three of the brothers and Molly rowed in the first hitch, and Ben sat forward, behind Lewis.

There was a covered section forward, with the canopy down now, and a permanently closed-in rear section with four bunks. The forward section could be closed as snugly as the rear. Every available inch of space had been used, mostly for food, extra clothes, medical supplies, and waterproof pouches folded neatly, to be filled with documents, maps, whatever they found of value.

Molly rowed and watched the shoreline. They had left the familiar section of the valley, with its cultivated fields; the land was changing. The valley narrowed, then widened, then narrowed again, with steeply rising cliffs to the left, wooded slopes on the right. In the silent morning the trees were unmoving; there was no sound except the splashing of oars.

Her sisters would be in the food-processing kitchens this week, Molly thought, as she watched the oar dip into the clear water. Laughing together, moving together. Perhaps they missed her already… She pulled steadily, lifted the oar, watched it dip again.

"Rock! Ten o'clock, twenty yards!" Lewis called.

They shifted course easily to give it a wide berth.

"Nine o'clock, twenty yards!"

Thomas, in front of Molly, was wide-shouldered, his hair the color of straw, and as straight as straw. A slight breeze lifted it and let it fall over and over. His muscles moved fluidly, and perspiration glazed him. Molly thought he would make a fine drawing, a study in musculature. He turned and said something to Harvey, across the boat from him, and they both laughed.

Now the sun was higher and the heat was in their faces, along with the breeze they created moving through the water, slowly, but steadily, smoothly. Molly could feel sweat on her upper lip. Soon they would have to stop to put the canopy in place. It would offer some wind resistance, but they had decided the pluses were greater than the minuses; the trip was planned to provide the maximum of safety and comfort, and neither was to be sacrificed to speed.

Others had gone down the river as far as the juncture with the Shenandoah. There were rocks ahead, then a smooth, long slide into the broader, and unknown, river. And that afternoon Molly would relinquish her place at the oars and start her real mission, a pictorial diary of the trip, including whatever changes in the maps were necessary.