In another minute four maddened beasts were careering across the prairie with portions of their trappings banging about them, while one man who was badly kicked sat down grey in face and gasping, and the fire rolled up to the ridge of loam, checked, and then sprang across it here and there.
“I’ll take one of those lad’s places,” said Dane: “That fellow can’t hold the breaker straight, Courthorne.”
It was a minute or two later when he flung a breathless lad away from his plough, and the latter turned upon him hoarse with indignation.
“I raced Stapleton for it. Loose your hold, confound you. It’s mine,” he said.
Dane turned and laughed at him as he signed to one of the Ontario hired men to take the near horse’s head.
“You’re a plucky lad, and you’ve done what you could,” he said. “Still, if you get in the way of a grown man now, I’ll break your head for you.”
He was off in another moment, crossed Witham, who had found fresh beasts, in his furrow, and had turned and doubled it before the fire that had passed the other barrier came close upon them. Once more the smoke grew blinding, and one of Dane’s beasts went down.
“I’m out of action now,” he said. “Try back. That team will never face it, Courthorne.”
Witham’s face showed very grim under the tossing flame. “They’ve got to. I’m going through,” he said. “If the others are to stop it behind there, they must have time.”
Then he and the husband of the woman who had spoken to Maud Barrington passed on with the frantic team into the smoke that was streaked with flame.