e asked.

"It's bad. We've got to get out of here and without losing any time. How
about the bus?"

"It won't even cough," moaned the director.

"Any word from the man you sent for help?"

"Not yet. What'll we do?" There was an anxious note in Billy Fenstow's
voice.

"I don't know yet, but we'll do something."

Curt strode forward to the front end of the bus where the male members
of the company were grouped.

"Any chance of getting going within the next five or ten minutes?" he
asked the director, who was almost buried under the hood.

"Afraid not," came the smothered reply. "I've found the trouble but it's
going to take about half an hour to get it fixed."

Curt turned and faced Bill Fenstow.

"That's too long," he warned the director. "The wind's getting worse and
that fire's coming fast now. In another half hour this valley will be an
inferno. It will be impossible for anyone to live in it."

"Then we'd better start back for the ranch afoot," said the director.

Curt's laugh was hard and thin and Janet, hearing it, thought it was a
desperate laugh.

"The fire would overtake us before we could get near the ranch," said
Curt. "We've got to make a stand and we might as well make it here."

"What can we do?" It was the director asking the question.

"We can start a backfire and burn off as much ground around here as
possible. While some of us are doing that the others can see what they
can do in getting the bus fixed. If it's done in time, we'll run for it;
if it isn't this is as good a place as any."

Helen came close to Janet.

"Is it that bad?" she whispered.

"I'm afraid it is," admitted Janet. "Scared?"

"Scared to death," confessed Helen.

"So am I," admitted Janet. "But maybe there is something we can do to
help the men."

Every member of the company was anxious and willing to do whatever they
could and Curt Newsom snapped directions at them. Most of the men raced
out into the brush and almost instantly small fires sprang up. They ate
their way rapidly through the undergrowth and as they neared the bus
itself were beaten out, the men using coats, blankets or whatever
article they could find in the bus. In less than ten minutes there was a
growing blackened area around the stalled vehicle. Their object was to
create a large enough burned over area so that the main wall of the
advancing fire would move around them.

Curt told them frankly that the heat would be bad, almost unbearable,
b