hot
noonday air. Then my heart stopped beating. _It was the prairie on
fire._

I had heard a great deal about fire-guards and fire-guarding, three rows
about crops and ten about buildings; and I knew that Olie hadn't yet
finished turning all those essential furrows. And if that column of
smoke, which was swinging up through the silvery haze where the indigo
vault of heaven melted into the dusty whiteness of the parched
grasslands, had come from the mouth of a siege-gun which was cannonading
us where we stood, it couldn't have more completely chilled my blood.
For I knew that east wind would carry the line of fire crackling across
the prairie floor to Dinky-Dunk's wheat, to the stables and
out-buildings, to Casa Grande itself, and all our scheming and planning
and toiling and moiling would go up in one yellow puff of smoke. And
once under way, nothing could stop that widening river of flame.

It was Dinky-Dunk who jumped to life as though he had indeed been
cannonaded. In one bound he was at the buckboard and was snatching out
the horse-blanket that lay folded up under the seat. Then he unsnapped
the reins from Paddy's bridle, snapping them on the blanket, one to the
buckle and the other to the strap-end. In another minute he had the
hobble off Paddy and had swung me up on that astonished pinto's back.
The next minute he himself was on Maid Marian, poking one end of the
long rein into my hand and telling me to keep up with him.

We rode like mad. I scarcely understood what it meant, at the time, but
I at least kept up with him. We went floundering through one end of a
slough until the blanket was wet and heavy and I could hardly hold it.
But I hung on for dear life. Then we swung off across the dry grass
toward that advancing semicircle of fire, as far apart as the taut reins
would let us ride. Dinky-Dunk took the windward side. Then on we rushed,
along that wavering frontier of flame, neck to neck, dragging the wet
blanket along its orange-tinted crest, flattening it down and wiping it
out as we went. We made the full circle, panting; saw where the flames
had broken out again, and swung back with our dragging blanket. But when
one side was conquered another side would revive, and off we'd have to
go again, until my arm felt as though it were going to be pulled out of
its socket.

But we won that fight, in the end. I slipped down off Paddy's back and
lay full length on the sod, weak, shaking, wondering why the solid