“We’ve got to try it,” said Pennington. “Otherwise we’d have to go back so far that it would get away from us on the east side before we made the circle. Jake, you choke the plow handles—I’ll drive!”
Jake was a short, stocky, red-headed boy of twenty, with shoulders like a bull. He grinned good-naturedly.
“I’ll choke the tar out of ’em!” he said.
“The rest of you shovel and beat like hell!” ordered Custer.
Shannon watched him as he took the reins and started the team forward, slowly, quietly. There was no yelling. They were horsemen, these men of Ganado. The great Percherons moved ponderously forward. The plow point bit deep into the earth, but the huge beasts walked on as if dragging an empty wagon.
When the girl saw where Custer was guiding them she held her breath. No, she must be mistaken! He would turn them up toward the ridge. He could not be thinking of trying to drive them across the steep, shelving side of the ravine!
But he was. They slipped and caught themselves. Directly below them the burning brush had become a fiery furnace. If ever they failed to catch themselves, nothing could save them from that hell of heat.
Jake, clinging to the plow handles, stumbled and slid, but the plow steadied him, and the furrow saved his footing a dozen times in as many yards. Custer, driving, walked just below the plow. How he kept the team going was a miracle to the girl.
The steep sides of the ravine seemed almost perpendicular in places, with footing fit only for a goat. How those heavy horses clung there was beyond her. Only implicit confidence in these men of Ganado, who had handled them from the time they were foaled, and great courage, could account for it.
What splendid animals they were! The crackling of burning brush, the roaring of the flames, the almost unbearable heat that swept up to them from below, must have been terrifying; and yet only by occasional nervous side glances and uppricked ears did they acknowledge their instinctive fear of fire.