Then the fire rolled up to the edge of the ploughing, a wall of flame, perhaps a hundred yards from end to end, leaping up with a mad roaring; then it stopped and fell away. The sparks dropped short, too, in a lulling of the wind, and what, by contrast, seemed black darkness rushed down upon that part of the prairie. Then there was an impressive silence, and men, half dazed by the heat and effort, wiped their streaming faces, and looked round in search of their invisible neighbours.
None of them knew how long this lasted, but, though they had won so far, the fight was not yet over. Presently the smoke that streamed past them was torn aside again, and a red light shone along the line. The second fire was coming on, and there was still another behind. The flickering radiance showed the dusky figures that leant upon the shovel-hafts or shook out the half-dried bags. Here and there it also showed a blackened face, surmounted by frizzled hair.
Gallwey, as it happened, found himself close to Leland, and looked at the latter with a little sardonic smile, not knowing that he himself was not much more prepossessing in his outward appearance. Leland's wide hat hung shapelessly over his blackened face. There was a charred gap in the front brim, as well as several big holes in his jean jacket, which was badly rent. Blood was trickling from one of his hands.
"I don't know if I did that myself, or if somebody hit me with a shovel," he said. "Anyway, when I fell down, one or two of them ran over me."
Then he turned fiercely towards the moving fires. "The next one's bigger. If the wind would only drop!"
Gallwey, who fancied by the way the smoke drove past them that there was very little chance of it, coughed. "It's evidently not going to. If we had only a little water, one could be more content. I feel as if there was not a drop of moisture anywhere in me."
One or two of the others heard him, and cries went up.
"Water!" said somebody. "Is there any?"
"I'm 'most as dry as this bag. It will blaze next time," said another man. "My jacket's singed to tinder, too. How're we going to do when our clothes start burning?"
Leland stood up where the rest could dimly see him on the spoke of a binder wheel.