'Is there no danger to the farm, Robert?' asked his sister, who had become blanched with fear. 'I never heard such a terrible sound as that raging and crackling.'
'To Daisy Burn none, I should say; for, of course, the man had sense enough to fire the bush only a long way down in front, an extensive clearing rather round the house, and the breeze will keep away the blaze.'
'Thank God,' fervently ejaculated Linda. 'I wish we could bring Miss Armytage and little Jay to the Creek while it lasts. Wouldn't you go across for them, Bob? I know they must be frightened.'
Robert hardly heard her, and certainly did not take in the import of her words. With some wonder at his set face and earnest watch along shore, she did not press her wish. He was looking at the belt of fat resinous pines and balsams, dry as chips from the long summer droughts and tropical heats, which extended along from the foot of Armytage's farm even to the cedar swamp; he was feeling that the slight wind was blowing in a fair direction for the burning of this most inflammable fuel, and consequently the endangering of his property on the creek. A point or two from the east of south it blew; proved by the strong resinous smell wafted towards the landing cove.
'Bob, you're forgetting the trout and the tackle,' as he jumped ashore, helped her out, and hurried up the beaten path beside the beaver meadow. 'Never mind; I want to see Holt,' was his answer. 'If any man can help, 'tis he.'
'Then there is danger!' She still thought of the Daisy Burn people. Before they reached the house, they met Mr. Holt and half-a-dozen Indians.
'We must burn a patch of brushwood, to deprive the fire of fuel,' said the former. 'These Indians have done the like on the prairies westward. It is worth trying, at all events.'
'Go up to my mother, Linda; there's nothing to be much alarmed for as yet; I hope this plan of Holt's may stop its progress. I'll be at the house as soon as I can, tell her;' and he ran after the others, down to the mouth of the creek, where a strip of alluvial land, covered with bushes and rank grass, interrupted the belt of firs and cedars. Calling in fire as an ally against itself seemed to Robert very perilous; but the calm Indians, accustomed to wilderness exigencies, set about the protective burning at once. The flame easily ran through the dry brushwood; it was kept within bounds by cutting down the shrubs where it might spread farther than was desirable. Soon a broad blackened belt lay beside the creek, containing nothing upon which the fire could fasten. Axes were at work to widen it still further.
'The wind has risen very much, Holt,' said Robert, as they felt hot currents of air sweep past them.
'Just the result of the rarified atmosphere over the flames,' he answered. They spoke little: the impending risk was too awful. For once, the white man submitted himself to the guidance of the red. To prevent the fire from crossing the creek was the great object. The water itself, perhaps a hundred feet wide, would be an ineffectual barrier; such fierce flame would overleap it. Therefore the Indians had burned the left bank, and now proceeded to burn the right. Indomitably self-possessed, cool and silent, they did precisely what met the emergency, without flurry or confusion.