e a slim serpent through the
lonely wilderness, Brownie could make but slow time. As they
followed the little path, the walls of the narrow valley grew
steeper, more rocky, and barren; and the road became more and more
rough and difficult, until at last the valley narrowed to a mere
rocky gorge, through which the creek ran, tumbling and foaming on
its way.

It was quite late when Sammy reached the point near the head of
the stream where the trail leads out of the canon to the
road on the ridge above. It was still a good two miles to the
Forks. As she passed the spring, a few big drops of rain came
pattering down, and, looking up, she saw, swaying and tossing in
the wind, the trees that fringed the ledges above, and she heard
the roar of the oncoming storm.

A short way up the side of the mountain at the foot of a great
overhanging cliff, there is a narrow bench, and less than a
hundred feet from where the trail finds its way through a break in
the rocky wall, there is a deep cave like hollow. Sammy knew the
spot well. It would afford excellent shelter.

Pushing Brownie up the steep path, she had reached this bench,
when the rushing storm cloud shut out the last of the light, and
the hills shook with a deafening crash of thunder. Instinctively
the girl turned her pony's head from the trail, and, following the
cliff, reached the sheltered nook, just as the storm burst in all
its wild fury.

The rain came down in torrents; the forest roared; and against the
black sky, in an almost continuous glare of lightning, the big
trees tugged and strained in their wild wrestle with the wind;
while peal after peal of thunder, rolling, crashing, reverberating
through the hills, added to the uproar.

It was over in a little while. The wind passed; the thunder
rumbled and growled in the distance; and the rain fell gently; but
the sky was still lighted by the red glare. Though it was so dark
that Sammy could see the trees and rocks only by the lightning's
flash, she was not frightened. She knew that Brownie would find
the way easily, and, as for the wetting, she would soon be
laughing at that with her friends at the Postoffice.

But, as the girl was on the point of moving, a voice said, "It's a
mighty good thing for us this old ledge happened to be here, ain't
it?" It was a man's voice, and another replied, "Right you are.
And it's a good thing, too, that this blow came early in the
evening."

The speakers were between Sammy a