,
others who were somewhat familiar with the road were beginning to
question his leading.

"That clump of trees doesn't look natural just there," said one,
standing up in the sleigh and trying to peer through the wall of
snowflakes. "It's too near. It ought to be a hundred feet away."

"No. You're thinking we're farther back than We are," declared Neil
Ward, from the front seat. "We're almost at the turn by the railroad."

"Why, we can't be! We haven't passed the Winters farm. I tell you,
you're off the road."

"I think we are," agreed the driver, uneasily, pulling his cap farther
over his snow-hung eyebrows. "I've been thinking so for quite a spell."

"We're all right. You people just keep cool!" cried Neil.

"No trouble about keeping cool in this blizzard!" growled somebody, and
there was a general laugh.

One of the girls started a song, and they all joined cheerily in. A
proposition to toot the horns, forgotten in the bottom of the sleigh,
with a hope of attracting attention from some one, was adopted, and a
hideous din followed, and was kept up till every one was weary--with no
result.

All at once, without warning, the horses plunged heavily and solidly to
their steaming shoulders into an undreamed-of ditch, and the sleigh
stopped, well into the same hole.

"Will you admit now that we're off the road, Neil Ward?" cried some one,
fiercely; and Neil, without contention but with evident chagrin,
admitted it. There was no ditch that he was aware of within a mile of
the highway.

Jeff drew the rugs tighter about Evelyn, then lifted a corner to peer
in. "Don't be frightened, little girl. We'll get out of this all right,"
he said, as cheerfully as he could, although he was alarmed for her
safety more than he would have dared to admit, even to himself.

The other girls were all strong, healthy specimens of young womanhood,
presumably able to endure a good deal of cold and exposure without
danger of serious harm. But this little sensitive plant! Jeff waited in
suspense for her answer.

It came in a clear, sweet voice, without a particle of fright in it: "Of
course we shall. And won't it be fun to tell about it afterward?"

"You're right, it will!" he responded, with enthusiasm. Inwardly he
said, "You're a plucky one, all right." Then, with the other fellows, he
leaped out of the sleigh, and went to trampling down the snow around the
imprisoned horses.

* * * * *

Alone tog