We had no idea how we should get the flock on after dark.
Old Peg soon took the matter out of our hands.

She had been plodding on moodily at the head of her large family for half an hour or more, and coming at length to a dim cross road that entered the highway from the woods on the north side, she turned and started up it at a headlong run.
How she ran! And how the flock streamed after her! How we ran, too, to head her off and turn her back! Addison dashed out to one side of the narrow forest road and I to the other.

But there was brush and swamp on both sides.

Neither of us could catch up with Old Peg.

Stumbling through the snowy thickets, we tried to get past her half a dozen times, but she still kept ahead.
She must have gone a mile.