rept on to mid-afternoon, and the hot wind came up from the
ground, blistering our faces. There was no one near the print shop,
where the metal was hot to the touch, no movement over the plains. We
sent our helpers home, while Ma, Ida Mary and I moved about languidly,
doing only what was absolutely necessary.

There was a curious, acrid smell in the air. As though a bolt of
lightning had struck, I stopped my work on the paper and cried out,
"What's that?"

"Fire," screamed Ida Mary; "fire!"

Smoke enveloped us. There was a deafening crackle. Blinding red flame.
We ran to the door, and there, not ten feet away, our shack was burning
to the ground. The little lean-to kitchen, covered with tar paper, was
sending its flames high into the air. Frantically we ran to the front
door, shouting above the crackling and roar of flame, "The trunk! The
money! The settlers' money!"

The print shop would go, too--and the notices had several weeks to
run--but the essential thing was to get the money back. We must do that,
must! Oh, for a rolling bank on wheels!

At the front door black smoke came rolling out, choking us. Ida Mary
threw a sack over her head and started into the shack. Ma Wagor and I
dragged her back into the open air. The building was burning as though
it had been made of paper, a torch of orange flames. We watched it go,
home, money, clothes, a few valuable keepsakes, furniture--everything we
possessed licked up by the flames. The piano, too--I was glad it had
brought so much pleasure to the settlers.

The wind! Now the fire was spreading. The print shop was burning, its
inflammable tar paper and dry boards blazing like powder. "Hurry,
hurry!" we called frantically to each other. From the print shop I
grabbed the most valuable papers while Ida Mary snatched what she could
from the post office. Stoical, silent, making every move count, Ma Wagor
was busy in the store, her store, in which she had taken such pride and
such infinite pleasure. Ma was getting more "confusement" now than she
had bargained for.

Blinded with smoke, we caught up the sacks into which we had stuffed the
papers and threw them into the cave, the only shelter left on the whole
claim.

In less than thirty minutes the post office, the store with its supply
of food, the print shop were gone. The harvest of long months of labor
and storm, thirst and fire, vanished as though it had never been--gone
up in clouds of heavy, black smoke.

If the wi