“I’m—be—ing—jolt—ed—to—a—jel—ly!” gasped Heavy. “I’ll be—one sol—id bruise.”
But Bob did not propose to be left behind by Jane Ann and Tom Cameron, and Madge showed her heartlessness by retorting on the stout girl:
“You’ll be solid, all right, Jennie, never mind whether you are bruised or not. You know that you’re no ‘airy, fairy Lillian.’”
But the rate at which they were traveling was not conducive to conversation; and most of the time the girls clung on and secretly hoped that Bob would not overturn the buckboard. The ponies seemed desirous of running away all the time.
The rosy glow along the skyline increased; and now flames leaped—yellow and scarlet—rising and falling, while the width of the streak of fire increased at both ends. Luckily there was scarcely any wind. But the fire certainly was spreading.
The ponies tore along under Bob’s lash and Jane Ann and Tom did not leave them far behind. Over the rolling prairie they fled and so rapidly that Hicks and his aides from the ranch-house were not far in advance when the visitors came within unrestricted view of the flames.
Jane Ann halted and held up her hand to Bob to pull in the ponies when they topped a ridge which was the final barrier between them and the bottom where the fire burned. For several miles the dry grass, scrub, and groves of trees had been blackened by the fire. Light smoke clouds drifted away from the line of flame, which crackled sharply and advanced in a steady march toward the ridge on which the spectators were perched.
“My goodness me!” exclaimed Heavy. “You couldn’t put that fire out by spilling a bucket of water on it, could you?”
The fire line was several miles long. The flames advanced slowly; but here and there, where it caught in a bunch of scrub, the tongues of fire mounted swiftly into the air for twenty feet, or more; and in these pillars of fire lurked much danger, for when a blast of wind chanced to swoop down on them, the flames jumped!
Toiling up the ridge, snorting and bellowing, tails in air and horns tossing, drifted a herd of several thousand cattle, about ready to stampede although the fire was not really chasing them. The danger lay in the fact that the flames had gained such headway, and had spread so widely, that the entire range might be burned over, leaving nothing for the cattle to eat.