"You are not walking, Ranald?"

"No, I have the colt."

"Oh, that's splendid. We'll have a fine gallop--that is, if the moon is
up."

"Yes, it is just coming up," said Ranald, hurrying away to the stable
that he might escape Jessie's wrath and get the pony ready.

It was no unusual thing for the minister and his wife to be called upon
to do duty for doctor and nurse. The doctor was twenty miles away. So
Mrs. Murray got into her riding-habit, threw her knitted hood over her
head, put some simple medicines into her hand-bag, and in ten minutes
was waiting for Ranald at the door.



CHAPTER IV

THE RIDE FOR LIFE


The night was clear, with a touch of frost in the air, yet with the
feeling in it of approaching spring. A dim light fell over the forest
from the half-moon and the stars, and seemed to fill up the little
clearing in which the manse stood, with a weird and mysterious radiance.
Far away in the forest the long-drawn howl of a wolf rose and fell, and
in a moment sharp and clear came an answer from the bush just at hand.
Mrs. Murray dreaded the wolves, but she was no coward and scorned to