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over him until they were sure he was feeling
     quite comforted. Colonel Sanders had adjusted his roosting place to the top board of Gypsy’s stall, and after Mary removed
     Finnegan from the middle of her sleeping bag to a position between the two bags, the girls were ready to sleep.
    “Nice to have Finney here to protect us,” Mary yawned.
    “I’m glad we don’t have to try and stay up until midnight tonight to hear the animals talk,” Jody said sleepily, remembering
     their failed attempt on Christmas Eve. “Worrying about Star all day has worn me out.”
    “Hmmmm” Mary murmured, closing her eyes and snuggling against Finnegan.
    The girls were just drifting off to sleep when a small scratching sound coming from the corner of the stable caught Finnegan’s
     attention. He raised his head and pricked up his ears, sniffing the air curiously. The sound stopped, then came again. Now
     Finnegan, fully alert, whined and stood up, his paw landing squarely in the middle of Mary’s stomach.
    “Finnegan!” Mary whispered drowsily, “what’s the matter with you? There are no foals being born tonight. Go back to sleep.”
    But the inquisitive dog was already halfway across the stable in a half-crouch position, head low and sniffing the ground
     as he stalked closer to the object of his curiosity.
    Jody turned over in her sleeping bag and squinted into the gloom, which was only dimly illuminated by a sliver of cloud-covered
     moonlight through the dusty window of the stable.
    “What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s Finney doing?”
    “I don’t know. He sees something. Listen . . . do you hear that?”
    The scratching noise came again, louder this time. As Finnegan drew closer to the sound, the girls propped themselves up on
     their elbows and strained their eyes into the shadows.
    At that moment, the moonlight became brighter as the cloud passed over, and the girls saw the object of Finnegan’s attention—a
     large brown rat chewing and scratching busily in an attempt to gain entry into a bag of horse feed resting in the corner.
     The intruder was too absorbed in his task to notice the crafty dog stalking him. Before the girls could move, Finnegan pounced,
     taking the astonished rat in his jaws. The rat squealed in terror, Mary and Jody screamed in unison and jumped from their
     sleeping bags, and Star whinnied from his stall at the uproar.

    Mary and Jody screamed and jumped up from their sleeping bags.
    Finnegan shook his prey furiously back and forth and squeezed with his teeth until the rat was silent and hung still and lifeless
     in his jaws. Then, dropping the unfortunate animal at the girls’ feet, he sat down and wagged his tail proudly, waiting to
     be praised for his rat-killing prowess.
    “Finnegan!” cried Jody. “What did you do that for?”
    “Don’t yell at him, Jody!” Mary said. “He thinks he’s just doing his job. And he is, really. He kept that rat out of the pony’s
     grain, and we should thank him for it.”
    But before the girls could give Finnegan a good pat on the head, a distant whinny came from the direction of the big pasture.
     Star flung up his head, spun around in his stall, and answered back.
    “Oh, no, not again,” Mary lamented. “I was hoping Star was settled down for the night! I bet when he heard the rat squeal,
     it sounded like a whinny and that’s why he whinnied back. Then Lady must have heard him. Now they’ll go on forever, and we’ll
     be up all night!”
    But Star and Lady didn’t go on all night. They only called to each other a few more times. Star stomped his foot and shook
     his head in frustration, but he quieted down after Jody gave him a handful of grain and scratched him on the special spot
     at the top of his withers that Willie had shown her.
    No, it wasn’t whinnying that kept the girls up all night—it was the hooting of the barn owls, the scurrying of the squirrels
     on the stable roof, the curious screams of a fox in the distance,