She played a good deal with the riding-crop during the evening, and now and then she went outside the door and took a look at the weird, shroud-like shape, there in the light of the window. Once she stepped up to it and pushed the riding-crop in, to its full length, just to make sure that there was nothing under the snow. After that she took the riding-crop in and dried it carefully on a towel. Before she knew it the evening was far gone, and all but one carriage had returned. "Guess Jim's turned in at some ranch," came the word from the livery-stable. "He'll be ready to start out again as soon as it's light." If the evening had not seemed so miraculously short, Amy could not have forgiven herself for having been so slow in arriving at her own plan of action. As it was, the clock had struck twelve, before she found herself, clothed in two or three knit and wadded jackets under a loose old seal-skin sack, crossing the yard to the stable door. The maids had long since gone to bed, and Thomas Jefferson was a mile away, under his own modest roof. Presently, with a clatter of hoofs, Sunbeam came forth from the stable door, bearing on his back, a funny, round, dumpy figure, very unlike in its outlines to the slender form which usually graced that seat. The gallant steed was still further encumbered by a fur-lined great coat of the doctor's, strapped on behind, its pockets well stocked with brandy flask and biscuits. The storm had much abated, and there was already a break in the clouds over yonder. The air was intensely cold, but the wind had quite died down. Sunbeam took the road at a good pace, for he had a valiant spirit and would have scorned to remember the day's fatigues. His rider sat, a funny little ball of fur, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Stephen was nowhere on the open road; that was sure, for he was far too good a horseman to come to grief out there. There was but one place to look for him, and that was among the prairie-dog holes. She had told him of the danger there was among them, and he would have hastened there the moment he believed that she was lost. Amy did not do very much thinking as she rode along; she did not analyze the feeling that drove her forth to the rescue. She only knew that she and she alone was responsible for any harm that might have come to one whose only fault was that he had taken her at her word; and that she would cheerfully break her own neck and Sunbeam's,--even Sunbeam's! for the sake of rescuing him.