the girl went on. "This will be a hot corner."

"And that mighty quick!" cried Mack.

"But you don't propose to stay here?" gasped Pratt.

"Not much! Hold your mules, Mack," she called to the grumbling teamster.
"I'm going to make a flare."

"Better do somethin' mighty suddent, Miss," growled the man.

She spurred Molly up to the wagon-seat and there seized one of the
blankets.

"Got a sharp knife, Pratt?" she asked, shaking out the folds of the
blanket.

"Yes."

"Slit this blanket, then--lengthwise. Halve it," urged Frances. "And be
quick."

"That's right, Miss Frances!" called the teamster. "Set a backfire both
sides of the trail. We got to save ourselves. Be sure ye run it a mile
or more."

"Do you mean to burn the prairie ahead of us?" panted Pratt.

"Yes. We'll have to. I hope nobody will be hurt. But the way that fire
is coming back there," said Frances, firmly, "the flames will be ten
feet high when they get here."

"You don't mean it!"

"Yes. You'll see. Pray we may get a burned-over area before us in time
to escape. The flames will leap a couple of hundred feet or more before
the supply of gas--or whatever it is that burns so high above the
ground--expires. The breath of that flame will scorch us to cinders if
it reaches us. It will kill and char a big steer in a few seconds. Oh,
it is a serious situation we're in, Pratt!"

"Can't we keep ahead of it?" demanded the young man, anxiously.

"Not for long," replied Frances, with conviction. "I've seen more than
one such fire, as I tell you. There! Take this rawhide."

The ranchman's daughter was not idle while she talked. She showed him
how to knot the length of rawhide which she had produced from under the
wagon-seat to one end of his share of the blanket. Her own fingers were
busy with the other half meanwhile.

"Into your saddle now, Pratt. Take the right-hand side of the trail.
Ride as fast as you can toward the river when I give the word. Go a
mile, at least."

The ponies were urged close to the campfire and he followed Frances'
example when she flung the tail of her piece of blanket into the blaze.
The blankets caught fire and began to smoulder and smoke. There was
enough cotton mixed with the wool to cause it to catch fire quickly.

"All right! We're off!" shouted Frances, and spurred her pinto in the
opposite direction. Immediately the smouldering blanket-stuff was blown
into a live flame. Wherever it touched the dry grass and clu