nd would only go down, we groaned; but the sparks had already
caught the grass around us. A prairie fire! If it ever jumped those
breaks, the Strip would be devastated with the wind sweeping the plain
as it was doing. What irony that we who had printed our precautions and
warnings for others, should burn up the Strip! We who had labored so to
save it! And there was no chance for us. We could not outrun a prairie
fire. The horses, which were untied, had gone full speed across the
prairie at the first smell and sight of fire.

Now the oilhouse had caught, and we turned, panic-stricken, running
headlong across the plains, our feet burning, not knowing where we were
going so long as we could escape the explosion of the oil. Inside the
firebreaks the grass was burning. Listening for the explosion of the oil
was like waiting for the crack of doom. Then we remembered. Pa Wagor had
sunk the barrels underground, using siphons, "just in case of fire."

Sparks leaping up, flying across the breaks--the prairie was on fire! We
checked our flight, sanity returning with the emergency. We had to go
back--simply had to go back and fight that first outbreak of flame. The
Strip was at stake. Life and property were at stake. Falling, rising,
running, falling again, dragging each other up, we went back. "Help!" we
called to the empty prairie, "Help!"

There was nothing to smother the fast-spreading blaze. Not a thing. Not
even a sack or a hat. We tore off parts of the clothes from our scantily
clad bodies. Ma took off her petticoat. There was a sack in the barn
which we wet in a keg set in the yard, wet the canvas which covered the
keg. With that, with our feet we trampled down the sparks as they fell,
the flames as they rose--shoes hot and charred, holes burning through.

Across the prairie a team was coming at a dead run. "Bless the Lord," Ma
Wagor panted, "it's Sam Frye!"

A bright red flare shot up from behind and around me. My dress was on
fire. Ida Mary clawed dirt from the hard-baked ground, and with it in
her hands twisted my burning smock into knots to keep the flames from
spreading. With almost animal instinct I threw myself down in the
firebreak, pressing hard against the ground to extinguish any smoldering
sparks on my clothing, and lay panting, cooling in the dirt.

Sam Frye, the mail-carrier, was there, taking charge. All at once a
crowd had gathered, attracted by the leaping flames on what had been the
settlement of Ammo