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.

They tried to use the sail, but the wind in the valley was capricious, and they decided to wait until later, perhaps on the Potomac, and try it there. They stopped and set up the canopy and rested, then returned to the oars, and now Molly sat alone, her sketch pad and the river maps on the seat beside her. Her hands felt stiff and she was content to sit quietly. Finally she started to sketch.

They came to the first rapids later that afternoon, and navigated them without difficulty. They joined the Shenandoah and turned north, and when they rested, they were all subdued and even Jed had nothing to laugh about, no jokes to make.

They slept in the boat, riding gently on the water. Molly thought of her sisters, now in their narrow white beds, the mat rolled up and put away. She fought down tears of loneliness. A high breeze stirred the treetops and she imagined they were whispering. She longed to reach out and touch one of the brothers; it mattered little which one of them. She sighed, and heard someone whisper her name. It was Jed. He slipped into her narrow bunk, and with their arms wrapped tightly about each other, they fell asleep.

On the second night they all paired off and comforted one another before they were able to sleep.

The next day they were forced to a stop by rapids and a waterfall. “It isn’t on the map at all,” Molly said, standing on the bank with Lewis. The river had been wide and easy, the valley heavily overgrown with bushes and low trees where once corn and wheat had grown. Then the cliffs moved toward the water, which narrowed and deepened and ran swifter, and sometime since the maps had been printed one of the cliffs had shuddered and dropped massive boulders and debris that now choked the river as far ahead as they could see. The water had spread, filled the valley from side to side. They could hear the thunder of a waterfall ahead.

“We should be nearly at the juncture of the north and south branches of the Shenandoah,” Molly said. She turned to look at the cliffs. “Probably a couple of miles at the most, over there.” She pointed up the cliff that overshadowed them.

Lewis nodded. “We’ll have to go back until we find a place to get the boat out of the water, go overland.”

Molly consulted her map. “Look, this road. It comes nearly to the river back there, then goes over a couple of hills, about three miles, then back down to the river. That should clear the falls. There’s nothing but cliffs on this side between us and the north branch. No road, no trail, nothing.”

Lewis ordered lunch, and after they had eaten and rested they turned the boat and began to row against the current, keeping close to shore, watching for a sign of the road. The current was fast here, and they realized for the first time how hard it would be on the return trip, fighting the current all the way home.

Molly sighted the break in the hills where the old road was. They pulled in closer and found a spot where the boat could be hauled out of the water, and prepared for an overland trek. They had brought wheels and axles and axes to cut trees to make a wagon, and four of the brothers began to unpack what they needed.

Folded neatly away were heavy long pants and boots and long-sleeved shirts, protection more against scratches from bushes than cold, which was not expected while they were gone. Molly and Lewis changed clothes hurriedly and left to look for the best way to get through the scrub growth to the road.

They would have to sleep in the woods that night, Molly thought suddenly, and a shudd............