traveling at night was such a hazard on horseback

There are some great dark-night stories in Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I remember the delicious chills of fear I felt when my mother read aloud the story of the time Laura's grandfather rode through the dark woods at top speed, trying to escape a black panther which was pursuing him. And then there was the time Pa mistook a big tree stump for a bear...