shels of holly berries and cedar buds as well as the materials for
wreaths.

One pair of the horses was western--high-spirited, hard-bitted mustangs.
Ann Hicks recognized them before she got into the sleigh. How they pulled
and danced, and tossed the froth from their bits!

"I feel just as they do," thought the girl. "I'd love to break out, and
kick, and bite, and act the very Old Boy! Poor things! How they must miss
the plains and the free range."

The other girls wondered what made her so silent. The tang of the frosty
air, and the ring of the ponies' hoofs, and the jingle of the bells put
plenty of life and fun into her mates; but Ann remained morose.

They reached the edge of the swamp and the girls alighted with merry shout
and song. They were all armed with big shears or sharp knives, but the
berries grew high, and Old Dolliver's boy had to climb for them.

Then the accident occurred--a totally unexpected and unlooked for
accident. In stepping out on a high branch, the boy slipped, fell, and
came down to the ground, hitting each intervening limb, and so saving his
life, but dashing every bit of breath from his lungs, it seemed!

The girls ran together, screaming. The teacher almost fainted. Old
Dolliver stooped over the fallen boy and wiped the blood from his lips.

"Don't tech him!" he croaked. "He's broke ev'ry bone in his body, I make
no doubt. An' he'd oughter have a doctor----"

"I'll get one," said Ann Hicks, briskly, in the old man's ear. "Where's
the nearest--and the best?"

"Doc Haverly at Lumberton."

"I'll get him."

"It's six miles, Miss. You'd never walk it. I'll take one of the
teams----"

"You stay with him," jerked out Ann. "I can ride."

"Ride? Them ain't ridin' hosses, Miss," declared Old Dolliver.

"If a horse has got four legs he can be ridden," declared the girl from
the ranch, succinctly.

"Take the off one on my team, then----"

"That old plug? I guess not!" exclaimed Ann, and was off.

She unharnessed one of the pitching, snapping mu