The biggest brother laughed uneasily. "No," he replied, "it'll go right through the fire; but the cattle'll pitch it off the track if they get in front of it."
The little girl faced around to watch the oncoming rout, and the biggest brother renewed his thrashing of the blue mare. But he was not satisfied with the horse's speed. She was acting strangely, wavering from side to side as if she were anxious to turn, at the same time keeping her head high and whinnying nervously.
"You know what's comin'," the biggest brother said to her between his teeth; "and you'd go back if I'd let you."
The little girl called his attention from the mare with a shout. He turned to look in the direction of her shaking finger. What he saw blanched his dripping face. From a point on the prairie where he knew the farm-house stood were ascending several dense, black funnels!
The line of flying animals had now crossed the farm. The blaze seemed to be at the very flanks of the herd, licking up the dry weeds and grass from under their speeding feet. The biggest brother groaned as his eye swept the oncoming panic. He forgot for a moment the danger to those at home and the terrible loss that, doubtless, had been visited upon them, in the thought of the impending fate of himself and the little girl. "They'll be plump on us in no time," he muttered, and, kneeling at the dashboard, he renewed his beating.
A bare three miles ahead lay the meadow beyond which was the town and safety. The thundering host behind, at the rate it was coming, would catch them while they were crossing the wide basin, where the dropseed-grass and blue-joint were higher than the wild hay on the prairie about. There the herd would have to increase its running to escape the swifter-going fire; hence, there lay the greatest peril to the biggest brother and the little girl.
In a few moments the animals heading the rout were out of sight in the draw crossed a little while before by the buckboard. The fire followed them, creeping slowly down the farther hillside, where the growth was poor; but when it, as well as the stock, disappeared in the bottom, where the grass stood thick and tall, the narrow ravine top vomited smoke and flame like the mouth of a crater.
In a terribly short space the stampede rushed up the bench and came on, a dense mass, horning and shouldering wildly. It was soon so close that the horses could be distinguished from the cattle. Then it gained on the buckboard to such an extent that the little girl could make out, through the smoke and dust that whirled before it, animals that she knew. But they were changed. Was that old Kate, the cultivator mare, with bulging eyes and lolling tongue? Or young Liney, the favorite daughter of a well-loved mother, whose horns cut the grass as she fled? Or Napoleon's dusky son, Dan, near the rails? Even above the sound of their feet and the roar of the fire, she could hear them bawling from weariness and fear as they charged ruthlessly on toward the buckboard.
The blue mare was failing in her stride and acting more obstinately than ever. Now to the right, now to the left, she turned, and it was with difficulty that the biggest brother kept her in the road. She answered every blow on her lathered hindquarters with an angry hump. The biggest brother, as he pounded her mercilessly, felt that escape was impossible.
Beside him, quiet and brave, sat the little girl. A spot of scarlet showed on either cheek, her eyes were alight, her figure tense. If she felt any terror, she did not show it. She knew how rapidly the blue mare could travel, and she trusted her pet to bring them to safety.