“Well,” said I, “Aspasia Hobbs, you had better hurry up or night will catch you. Besides, the wind has come up strong from the southwest, and away off over the Colden hills is a little black cloud--what a joke if you should get wet?” There is a lane running across from Hurdville to the Buffalo plank road, so I decided to cut my trip short and strike across at once. I looked at my watch and it was just 5:15 when I entered the lane, which was grass-grown and not at all adapted for bicycling. As I pushed on, the road grew worse, so I got off and pushed the wheel ahead of me. Rather hard work it proved, as I wore a long woolen dress, which I had to hold up in walking. Then I tried riding again. A great yellow ominous brightness was in the west, and soon I noticed it was growing dark, and that the little cloud had grown until it seemed to cover the whole western sky. A few big rain drops fell as I looked again at my watch, which said six o’clock. I kept thinking I must come to the plank road every minute, and strained my eyes for the telegraph poles which I knew marked the highway. But no, I could not see them. “Surely this lane must cross the main road or I am turned around and am following a road running parallel with the other,” I concluded. Still I trudged on, now riding, then walking. It began to rain now in right good earnest. I felt the mud sticking to my shoes and my clothes growing heavy. My arms grew tired pushing the wheel before me as I walked. The spokes had become a solid mass of mud. I tried to mount the wheel. It swerved and I lay in the ditch. I then realized that to try to push the bicycle further or to ride would be folly; so I pulled the machine into the bushes, and looked around me on every side. Not even a lightning glare to relieve the gloom and brighten the landscape. The rain still fell in torrents. I covered my face with my hands. I thought of my mother waiting in the bright light of our little dining-room, the supper on the table. I tried to imagine this howling wind and blackness of the night was a dream; but no, I was alone--_alone_, _lost_. CHAPTER VI. THE LOG CABIN. It was the worst night I ever saw, and I hope I may never see another one like it. How the winds did roar through the branches and the wild crash now and then of a falling tree was most appalling. The darkness was intense. The cold rain came in beating gusts, and I felt it was gradually turning to sleet and snow. Think of it, I, a city-bred woman, alone on an out-of-the-way country road, dense woods on either side, mud and slush ankle deep, wandering I knew not where! My clothes weighed a hundred pounds. They clung to my tired form and I seemed ready to fall with fatigue, when I saw, not far ahead of me, the glimmer of a light which seemed to come from a small log house a quarter of a mile back from the road.