the biggest brother's arm and pointed out a
dark, bulky creature that was in the lead. It was a bison, evidently one
of those lonely bachelors that, exiled from their kind, were the first
hermits of the plains. His bushy head was lowered and his beard swept
the ground. The biggest brother and the little girl could see his naked
body gleam and quiver as he was crowded forward by a band of antelope.
He galloped blindly, as if he was failing in strength. Even as they
looked he tumbled to his knees and let the antelope pass over him,
meeting an ignoble death beneath a hundred sharp hoofs and in the
embrace of the fire.

The biggest brother's attention was given to the bison only an instant.
For a long-horned steer collided with a hind wheel and a horse came
dashing against the blue mare. He guided the buckboard nearer the rails
to avoid the horse and reached round to hammer with his hat the steer's
nose, which was thrust almost against the seat. "They'll trample us,
they'll trample us!" he cried, and he seized the little girl about the
shoulders and thrust her in front of him. "Drive," he commanded. Then he
climbed back over the seat and furiously kicked out at the animals
lunging upon the buckboard.

But he could as easily have stopped the pursuing fire, which was in the
meadow and was house high; for, with those in the rear pressing them on
at every bound, the leaders could not slacken their course. He saw that
there was but one thing to be done: increase the speed before the
buckboard was run down. "Oh, why didn't I unhitch?" he cried miserably
as he climbed back to the little girl's side.

Forgetful of danger, she was whipping the blue mare with all her
strength. The mare was traveling as fast as the herd now, and the
station was in sight despite the drifting dust and smoke. Before it lay
the black stretch at which the fire must stop, and on which, if the blue
mare could be brought to a standstill behind a building or a waiting
car, there was succor from death. Yet hope--with the herd upon them and
the fire closer, hotter, and deadlier--was almost gone. The biggest
brother, in a very final frenzy of desperation, joined his efforts to
those of the little girl, and pounded the blue mare and the crowding
stock repeatedly with his naked fists.

But suddenly another phase entered into that run for life. The roar
behind them became louder, swelled to deafening, surged to their ears
like a long, deep boom of thunder. And