"Tell it just as you did at home," urged Ulyth.
"I'll try my best," sighed Rona, taking a small stool near the fire, so as to be slightly above the audience clustered round the hearthrug.
"It happened about a year ago," she began; "that's summer-time in New Zealand, you know, because the seasons are just opposite. It was Pamela Higson's birthday, and I'd been asked to go over for the day. I saddled Brownie, my best pony, and started at seven, because it's a twelve-mile ride to the Higsons' farm, and I wanted to be early so as to have time for plenty of fun. Brownie was fresh, and he wasn't tired when I got there, so we decided to give him an hour's rest and then ride up into the bush and have a picnic. Pamela showed me her birthday presents while we waited. She'd had a box sent her by the mail, and she was very delighted about it.
"Well, at perhaps eleven o'clock I set off with Pamela and the rest of the Higson children. There was Jake, just my own age, and Billy, a little younger, and Connie and Minnie, the two smallest. Oh yes, we each had our own horse or pony: Everybody rides out there. We slung baskets and tin cans over our saddles and then started up by the dry bed of the river towards the head of the gully. It was very hot (January's like July here), but we all had big hats and we didn't care. It was such fun to be together. When your nearest neighbours are twelve miles off you don't see them often enough to get tired of them. Billy was always making jokes, and Jake was jolly too in a quiet kind of way. Sometimes we could all ride abreast, and sometimes we had to go in single file, and our horses seemed to enjoy it as much as we did. Brownie loved company, so it was a treat for him as well as for me. The place we were going to was a piece of high land that lay at the top of the valley above the Higsons' block. There were generally plenty of berries up there, and we thought they'd just be ripe. It took us a fairly long time to do the climb, because there was no proper road, only a rough track. It was lovely, though, when we got up; we had a splendid view down the gully, and the air was so much cooler and fresher than it had been at the farm. We tethered our horses and gathered scrub to make a fire and boil our kettle. In New Zealand no one thinks of having a meal without drinking tea with it. We'd the jolliest picnic. The Higsons were famous for their cakes, and they'd brought plenty with them. I can tell you we didn't leave very many in the baskets.
"'Best put out our camp-fire,' Jake said when we'd finished; so we all set to work and stamped it out carefully. Everything was so dry with the heat that a spark might easily have set fire to the bush. Then we took our cans and went off to find berries. There were heaps of them; so we just picked and picked and picked for ever so long. Suddenly, when we were talking, we heard a noise and looked round. There was a stampede among the horses, and two of them, Billy's and Connie's, had broken loose and were careering down the gully. We ran as quick as lightning to the others for fear they might also free themselves and follow. I caught Brownie by the bridle and soothed him as well as I could; but he was very excited and trembling, and kept sniffing. Then I saw what had frightened him, for a puff of wind brought a puff of smoke with it, and ahead of us I saw a dark column whirl up towards the sky. Even the youngest child who's lived in the bush knows what that means. When all the grass and everything is so dry, the least thing will start a fire. Sometimes campers-out are careless, and the wind blows sparks; sometimes even a piece of an old bottle left lying about will act as a burning-glass. We didn't inquire the reason; all we knew was that we must tear back to the farm as rapidly as we could. Bush fires spread fearfully fast, and this one would probably sweep straight down the gorge.
"With two animals gone, luck was against us. Billy took Minnie's pony, Connie mounted behind Jake, and I made Minnie come with me on Brownie, because he was so strong, and better able to bear the double burden than Pamela's horse. It was well for us we were good riders, for we pelted down that gully fit to break our necks. Brownie was a sure-footed little beast, but the way he went slithering over rocks would have scared me if I hadn't been more afraid of the fire behind. We knew it would be touch and go whether we could save the farm or not. If the men were all far away there would be very little chance, though we meant to do our level best.
"Well, as I was saying, we just stampeded down the gully, and our horses kept their feet somehow. I guess we arrived at the house like a tornado. We yelled out our news, and coo-eed to some of the men we could see working in the distance. They came running at once, and Mrs. Higson sent up the rocket that was used on the farm as a danger-signal. Fortunately the rest of the men had only gone a short way. They were back almost directly, and everybody set to work to make a wide ring of bare land round the farm. They cut down trees, and threw up earth, and burnt a great patch of grass, and we children helped too for all we were worth. We were only just in time. We could see the great cloud of smoke coming down the valley, and as it grew nearer we heard the roaring or the fire. It seemed to bear down on us suddenly in a great burning sheet. For a moment or two the air was so hot that we could scarcely breathe, then the flame struck our ring of bare land, and parted in two and passed on either side of us, leaving the farm as an island. We watched it go crackling farther down the valley, till at last it spent itself in a rocky creek where it had nothing to feed on. All the place it had passed over was burnt to cinders, a horrible black mass. Only the house and the buildings and a few fields round them were untouched. It was an awful birthday for poor Pamela."
"Was your own farm hurt?" asked the girls breathlessly, as Rona paused in her story.
"Not at all. You see it was in quite a different valley, and the fire hadn't been near. Jake rode home with me, to make sure I was safe. Dad hadn't even seen the smoke."
"Suppose you hadn't noticed the fire when you were up in the hills?"