CHAPTER IV—THE FIRE FIGHT
The guests had followed Mr. Hicks and Jib out of the long window and had heard the cow puncher’s declaration. There was no light in the sky as far as the girls could see—no light of a fire, at least—but there seemed to be a tang of smoke; perhaps the smoke clung to the sweating horse and its rider.
“You got it straight, Scrub Weston?” demanded Bill Hicks. “This ain’t no burn you’re givin’ us?”
“Great piping Peter!” yelled the cowboy on the trembling pony, “it’ll be a burn all right if you fellows don’t git busy. I left Number Three outfit fighting the fire the best they knew; we’ve had to let the cattle drift. I tell ye, Boss, there’s more trouble brewin’ than you kin shake a stick at.”
“‘Nuff said!” roared Hicks. “Get busy, Ike. You fellers saddle and light out with Scrub. Rope you another hawse out o’ the corral, Scrub; you’ve blamed near killed that one.”
“Oh! is it really a prairie fire?” asked Ruth, of Jane Ann. “Can’t we see it?”
“You bet we will,” declared the ranchman’s niece. “Leave it to me. I’ll get the horse-wrangler to hitch up a pair of ponies and we’ll go over there. Wish you girls could ride.”
“Helen rides,” said Ruth, quickly.
“But not our kind of horses, I reckon,” returned Jane Ann, as she started after the cowboys. “But Tom and Bob can have mounts. Come on, boys!”
“We’ll get into trouble, like enough, if we go to this fire,” objected Madge Steele.