"Go home, and leave the team to one of the boys," he said.
Carrie laughed, standing bolt upright, the fire-light on her face, the reins in her hands.
"No," she said; "they're wanted, and do you think we can't drive in England? Get the bags out as fast as you can, boys."
The warning seemed necessary, for one of the horses' forelegs left the ground, and the other's hind hoofs crashed against the front of the waggon. Then Leland was almost swung off his feet, and Carrie laughed again.
"Let them go. I'll hold them if you're quick," she said.
She dropped into the driving-seat with her feet braced against the board, and the men made what haste they could, while the frantic team kicked and plunged and backed the waggon in among them. Gallwey was stirred to admiration as he watched the tense, shapely figure, braced against the strain upon the reins, that was now and then forced up by the fire and lost again.
Then a thick wreath of blinding smoke whirled down on them, and Carrie cried out as she swung the whip. There was a thud of hoofs and a rattle, the men leapt aside, and the waggon plunged into the vapour, as Gallwey said afterwards, like a thunderbolt.
CHAPTER XXVI
FIGHTING FIRE
There was silence for a minute, the tense silence that precedes a struggle, when the waggon lurched away, and the men stood still, intent and at a strain, blinking at the fire. The wind had lulled, and the smoke went almost straight up, shining luminously in the red glare. Beneath it, a wavy line of flame rolled on across the prairie, licking up the parched grass as it came. As it happened, the grass thereabouts was higher than usual. Unless there is a gale behind it, a grass-fire does not move with much celerity, and that night the one that menaced Leland's crop seemed inordinately slow to those who watched it. Indeed, one or two of them found it strangely hard to stand still while it rolled down on them, which, in cases of the kind, is by no means an unusual thing. Action of any kind, even purposeless action, is a relief to men under strain.