“In course they are. Say! you ain’t afraid, are you?” demanded the man. “I tell ye the fire is coming. It’s going to sweep this whole ridge.”
“Won’t—won’t they see it?”
“Did I see it?” demanded the squatter. “Not soon enough, you bet. Drive on, Miss. Surely you ain’t goin’ to show a yaller streak now?”
“But my—my chauffeur is waiting for me along the road here toward town.”
“Let him wait. He’s out of danger. There are plenty of open fields in that direction. He won’t get into no trouble. You drive through this side road like I tell you, and we’ll get clear around by Sitz’s farm ahead of the fire. But drive hard!”
Inspired by the man’s excitement, Hester did as she was told. They came to the crossroad, which she remembered, and turned into it. There was little smoke here beyond the ridge. Nobody would have suspected the raging pit of flame down there in the cut to the southeast.
Yet the flames were advancing on the wings of the wind. Hester had seen enough to assure her that the case was serious indeed. Once the fire topped the ridge the whole northern slope would be swept by a billow of flame!
The picture of these farmsteads burning and the people being unable to escape with their livestock and sundry possessions began to take form in Hester’s mind. She speeded up the car and it rushed through the gathering twilight like a locomotive of a fast express.
At the first house they stopped for only a moment. Hester turned on the car lamps, for the shadows were gathering in the narrow places along the road now. The squatter did not have to urge the danger upon the farmers. A look at his condition told its own story. A forest fire is a terrible thing, and once it gets under way usual means of fire-fighting are of no avail.
On and on raced the motor car. Along the summit of the wooded ridge behind them the glow of the fire spread to a deep rose—then to a crimson—against the sky. It was an angry light and the smoke that billowed up from it began to canopy the heavens.