then, with a shriek that seemed
to divide the smoke and dust, the local plunged through the cloud across
her track and came even with the blue mare's muzzle.

In that moment, worn with her five miles' gallop, it was the only thing
that could have spurred her on. Her eyes were bulging from lack of
breath. Her sides, streaked with blood, no longer responded to the
scourge of the rein ends. But, with the engine abreast, the desire to
worst it, long nurtured by the little girl, set her into a wilder pace.
With a snort, she gathered herself together.

The buckboard, tossing from side to side on the uneven meadow, gained
instantly on the herd and passed to the front once more. The engine had
distanced it, yet the blue mare did not slacken. The biggest brother and
the little girl, torn between hope and fear, yelled at her
encouragingly. Breathing heavily, she strained every muscle to obey.

Another moment and the engine was on the burnt strip; another, and the
last car reached it; a third, and the blue mare's feet struck it, and
she scurried into the lee of the depot to let the animals behind her
divide and charge by through the town.

* * * * *

THE biggest brother, as soon as the blue mare had been tenderly cared
for, hired a livery horse and started homeward. The little girl
accompanied him, her face, like his, still streaked with dust and
cinders. Neither spoke as the bare, smutty meadow was crossed. They only
looked ahead to where smoke was rising slowly, ten miles away to the
west. They were spent with excitement, but their thoughts were on their
mother and brothers, the house surrounded by a straw-strewn yard, the
line of stacks behind the barn, the board granaries, the fields dry and
ready for the match.

As they drove rapidly along through the sunlight, over the land just
scored and torn up by the stampede, they passed dead and injured animals
that, weaker than the others, had fallen and been trampled and burned.
Few horses and cattle had suffered, but, beginning at the draw, the
sheep were pitifully plentiful. Everywhere smoke floated up in tiny
threads from smoldering buffalo-chips, and clumps of weeds burned
damply, only now and then bursting into flame.

At last, with a shout of joy, the biggest brother made out the
farm-house; with an unhappy cry he announced the burning of the stacks.
And when the buckboard came still nearer, they could see that the
granaries were gone, and