“What do you mean by that?” Keith demanded; and then, by the silence, it seemed that every one knew. Beatrice caught her breath. Was this one of the ways Dick meant that Keith could fight?
“Climb down, boys, and get busy,” Keith called to his men, after a few breaths. “This is for Dick. Wait a minute! Pete, drive the wagon ahead, there. I guess we'd better begin on the other end and work this way. Come on—there's too much hot air here.” They clattered on across the coulee, kicking hot ashes up for the wind to seize upon. Beatrice went slowly up to Dick, feeling all at once very tired and out of heart with it all.
“Dick,” she called, in an anxious little voice, “Rex has run away from me. What shall I do?”
Dick straightened stiffly, his hands upon his aching loins, and peered through the smoke at her.
“I guess the only thing to do, then, is to get into the wagon over there. You can drive, Trix, if you want to, and that will give us another man here. I was just going to have some one take you home; now—the Lord only knows!—you're liable to have to stay till morning. Rex will go home, all right; you needn't worry about him.”
He bent to the work again, and she could hear the wet sack thud, thud upon the ground. Other sacks and blankets went thud, thud, and down here at close range the fire was not so beautiful as it had been from the hilltop. Down here the glamour was gone. She climbed up to the high wagon seat and took the reins from the man, who immediately seized upon a sack and went off to the fight. She felt that she was out of touch. She was out on the prairie at night, miles away from any house, driving a water-wagon for the men to put out a prairie fire. She had driven a coaching-party once on a wager; but she had never driven a lumber-wagon with barrels of water before. She could not think of any girl she knew who had.
It was a new experience, certainly, but she found no pleasure in it; she was tired and sleepy, and her eyes and throat smarted cruelly with the smoke. She looked back to the hill she had just left, and it seemed a long, long time since she sat upon a rock up there and watched the little, new fire grow and grow, and the strange shadows spring up from nowhere and beat it vindictively till it died.
Again she wondered vaguely who had done it; not Keith Cameron, surely, for Sir Redmond had all but accused him openly of setting the range afire. Would he stamp out a blaze that was just reaching a size to do mischief, if left a little longer? No one would have seen it for hours, probably. He would undoubtedly have let it run, unless—But who else could have set the fire? Who else would want to see the Pine Ridge country black and barren? Dick said Keith Cameron would not sit down and take his medicine—perhaps Dick knew he would do this thing.
As the fighters moved on across the coulee she drove the wagon to keep pace with them. Often a man would run up to the wagon, climb upon a wheel and dip a frayed gunny sack into a barrel, lift it out and run with it, all dripping, to the nearest point of the fire. Her part was to keep the wagon at the most convenient place. She began to feel the importance of her position, and to take pride in being always at the right spot. From the calm appreciation of the picturesque side, she drifted to the keen interest of the one who battles against heavy odds. The wind had veered again, and the flames rushed up the long coulee like an express train. But the path it left was growing narrower every moment. Keith Cameron was doing grand work with his crew upon the other side, and the space between them was shortening perceptibly.
Beatrice found herself watching the work of the Cross men. If they were doing it for effect, they certainly were acting well their part. She wondered what would happen when the two crews met, and the danger was over. Would Sir Redmond call Keith Cameron to account for what he had done? If he did, what would Keith say? And which side would Dick take? Very likely, she thought, he would defend Keith Cameron, and shield him if he could.