Terry was racing as never had Terry run before, her breath coming in choking sobs, her eyes shining wildly, her body shaken with the effort she put upon it. She had her burning barrier across the more dangerous end of the valley, where the cliffs dropped sheerest, she had but another few yards to go and there would be hope that she would succeed. But she must not stop yet, not yet.
She ran on toward the nearer rim of the valley, scattering burning wisps of grass as she went, her heart beating wildly, seeming ready to burst through her side. She fell, rose, ran on. She stood still a moment, turning her back to the fires of her own building, looking toward the upper end whence came the steady roar.
For an instant she stood fascinated. It looked as though the ground itself, in many a low-lying swell, were racing on to meet her. Then she saw the hundreds of horns glistening dully in the new light. That black mass, surging forward, was the herd and she was still in its path.
She cried out and threw down her last torch and ran just as the frightened steers were running, fear in her heart, racing away from death, just running for her life. She saw a form ahead of the others, breaking away from them, sweeping down upon her. She cried out in terror; then she knew and cried out again and threw up her arms and turned toward the rider who had remembered her and feared for her and come for her. And Steve, bending from his saddle, equal to the need of the moment, swept her up and caught her tight in his arm and rode out of the way of herd and fire.
From a little crag-crested knoll, standing hand in hand, their forms blended in silhouette against the dawn, they watched breathlessly the end of the stampede. The maddened brutes rushed on, straight toward Terry's barrier of flame. Then those in the van sought suddenly to alter their headlong courses.
Steve's face was white with anger as he saw the result. A full half-dozen, perhaps ten, big bodies at the fore passed through the far end of the flaming line, swept on, sought to swerve only at the last frantic moment with their fellows crowding them to the brink, and, struggling wildly, went over and down and out of sight. Terry shuddered.
The herd, however, broke, divided, swung to right and left and passed about the burning danger-signal and to the outer rims of the valley, achieving safety somewhere in the night, scattering, tossing their gleaming fronts, snorting, and beginning to bellow their rage.
"If it hadn't been for you, Terry Temple—" Steve began, his voice a little hoarse.
"If it hadn't been for you, Steve Packard,"' laughed Terry a trifle unsteadily but quite happily, "where would I have been?"
And then, quite as though their destiny wished it made plain that not yet had the time come for them to devote exclusively to themselves, Barbee rode down toward them, spurring through the last of the fleeing herd, shouting: