ed their horses and were lost in the choppy hills.
He waved all hands toward the buildings and they swarmed inside,
carrying out load after load of such articles as could be moved and
piling them out of reach of the flames.

The girl sat apart and watched them work. Her lethargy had returned.
It seemed a small matter to rescue these trinkets when the Three Bar
was a total wreck. The wind fanned the flames down on the bunk house
and one side was charred and smoking. The men drew back from the heat.
Tiny spurts of fire flickered along the charred side. Then it burst
into a sheet of flame.

Harris spoke briefly to Evans and the tall man nodded as he itemized
the orders in his mind.

"Now I'll get her away from here," Harris said. "It's hell for her to
just sit there and watch it burn."

He caught two of the saddled horses that had carried the men from
Brill's and crossed over to where she sat.

"Let's ride down to the field," he said. "And see what's got to be
done. I expect a week's work will repair that part of it all right."

She gazed at him in amazement. He spoke of repairing the damage while
the Three Bar burned before his eyes. But she rose and mounted the
horse. He shortened her stirrup straps and they rode off down what had
once been the lane, the fence flattened by the rushing horde of cattle
that had swept through.

The homestead cabins smoked but still stood intact.

"Look!" he urged cheerfully. "Those logs were too green to burn. We
won't even have to rebuild. They'll look a little charred round the
edges maybe, but otherwise as good as new."

Behind her sounded a gurgling roar as the roof of the main house fell
but Harris did not even look back.

"We can restring that fence in a right short while," he asserted.
"We've lost one crop of oat-hay--which we didn't much need, anyhow.
That young alfalfa is too deep rooted to be much hurt. Next spring
it'll come out thick, a heavy stand of hay; and we'll cut a thousand
tons."

They rode across fields trampled flat by thousands of churning hoofs
and reached the spot where the head gate had been, a yawning hole at
which the water sucked and tore. A section of the bank caved and was
washed away. And through it all he planned the work of reconstruction
and the transformation which would be effected inside a year,--while
behind them the home ranch was ablaze.

"We're not bad hurt," he said. "They can't hurt our land. I'd rather
have this