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.
Where the road leaves the ridge for Fall Creek Valley, Sammy never tightened the slack rein, and the pony never shortened his stride by so much as an inch.

It was well that he was hill bred, for none but a mountain horse could have kept his feet at such a terrific pace down the rocky slope.