Then all at once she remembered that Young Matt had told her how Sake Creek hollow headed in the pinery below the ridge along which they went from Fall Creek to the Forks.  It might be that this bench at the foot of the ledge would lead to a way out.

As quick as thought the girl slipped to the ground, and taking Brownie by the head began feeling her way along the narrow shelf.  Dead leaves, tangled grass and ferns, all wet and sodden, made a soft carpet, so that the men behind the rock heard no sound.  Now and then the lightning revealed a glimpse of the way for a short distance, but mostly she trusted blindly to her pony’s instinct.  Several times she stumbled over jagged fragments of rock that had fallen from above, cutting her hand and bruising her limbs cruelly.  Once, she was saved from falling over the cliff by the little horse’s refusal to move.  A moment she stood still in the darkness; then the lightning showed a way past the dangerous point.

After a time that seemed hours, she noticed that the ledge had become no higher than her head, and that a little farther on the bench was lost in the general slope of the hill.  She had reached the head of the hollow.  A short climb up the side of the mountain, and, pushing through the wet bushes, she found herself in the road.  She had saved about three miles.  It was still nearly five to her home.  An instant later the girl was in her saddle, and the brown pony was running his best.

Sammy always looked back upon that ride in the darkness, and, indeed, upon all that happened that night, as to a dream of horror.  As she rode, that other night came back to her, the night she had ridden to save the shepherd, and she lived over again that evening in the beautiful woods with Young Matt.  Oh, if he were only with her now!  Unconsciously, at times, she called his name aloud again and again, keeping time to the beat of her pony’s feet.  At other times she urged Brownie on, and the little horse, feeling the spirit of his mistress, answered with the best he had to give.  With eager, outstretched head, and wide nostrils, he ran as though he understood the need.

How dark it was!  At every bound they seemed plunging into a black wall.  What if there should be a tree blown across the road?  At the thought she grew faint.  She saw herself lying senseless, and her father carried away to prison.  Then rallying, she held her seat carefully.  She must make it as easy as possible for Brownie, dear little Brownie.  How she strained her eyes to see into the black night!  How she prayed God to keep the little horse!

Only once in a lifetime, it seemed to her, did the pony’s iron shoe strike sparks of fire from the rocks, or the lightning give her a quick glimpse of the road ahead.  They must go faster, faster, faster.  Those men should not—­they should not have her Daddy Jim; not unless Brownie stumbled.