and all! Get off that horse and go inside. If a
man leaves the station to-night he needn't come back." (This last for
the benefit of the men's hut.)

"But, father--"

"Get off that horse and go inside," roared Wall.

"I--I won't."

"What!" He darted forward as though to drag her from the saddle, but she
swung her horse away.

"Stop! Where are you going?"

"To help Ross," said Mary. "He had no one to send for help."

"Then go the same way as your brother!" roared her father; "and if you
show your nose back again I'll horse-whip you off the run!"

"I'll go, father," said Mary, and she was away.

IV

THE FIRE AT ROSS'S FARM

Ross's farm was in a corner between the ridges and the creek. The fire
had come down from the creek, but the siding on that side was fairly
clear, and they had stopped the fire there. It went behind the ridge
and ran up and over. The ridge was covered thickly with scrub and dead
grass; the wheat-field went well up the siding, and along the top was a
bush face with only a narrow bridle-track between it and the long dead
grass. Everything depended on the wind. Mary saw Ross and Mrs Ross
and the daughter Jenny, well up the siding above the fence, working
desperately, running to and fro, and beating out the fire with green
boughs. Mary left her horse, ran into the hut, and looked hurriedly
round for something to wear in place of her riding-skirt. She only saw
a couple of light print dresses. She stepped into a skillion room, which
happened to be Bob's room, and there caught sight of a pair of trousers
and a coat hanging on the wall.

Bob Ross, beating desperately along a line of fire that curved down-hill
to his right, and half-choked and blinded with the smoke, almost
stumbled against a figure which was too tall to be his father.

"Why! who's that?" he gasped.

"It's only me, Bob," said Mary, and she lifted her bough again.

Bob stared. He was so astonished that he almost forgot the fire and the
wheat. Bob was not thin--but--

"Don't look at me, Bob!" said Mary, hurriedly. "We're going to be
married, so it doesn't matter. Let us save the wheat."

There was no time to waste; there was a breeze now from over the ridges,
light, but enough to bear the fire down on them. Once, when they had
breathing space, Mary ran to the creek for a billy of water. They beat
out the fire all along the siding to where a rib of granite came down
over the ridge to the fence, and then they thought the whe