“I got the lead away, but Dad caught me up pretty soon. Between us and the sheep paddock there were only wire fences, which he wouldn’t take Bosun over, so he couldn’t race away from the rest of us this time.
“We might as well take it easy,’ he said, ‘for all the good we can do. The sheep nearly live in that gully.’
“All the same, we raced. The wind had gone down by now, so the fire couldn’t travel as fast as it had done in the open ground. There was a long slope leading down to the gully, and as we got to this we could see the whole of the little paddock, and there wasn’t a sheep in sight. Every blessed one was in the gully, and the fire was three-parts of the way along it!
“Roast mutton!’ I heard Dad say under his breath.
“Then we saw Norah. She came racing on Bobs to the fence of the paddock near the head of the gully—much nearer the fire than we were. We saw her look at the fire and into the gully, and I reckon we all knew she was fighting with her promise to Dad about not tackling the fire. But she saw the sheep before we could. They had run from the smoke along the gully till they came to the head of it, where it ended with pretty steep banks all round. By that time they were thoroughly dazed, and there they would have stayed until they were roasted. Sheep are stupid brutes at any time, but in smoke they’re just idiots!
“Norah gave only one look. Then she slipped off Bobs and left him to look after himself, and she tore down into the gully.”
“Oh, Jim, go on!” said Wally.
“I’m going,” said Jim affably.
“Dad gave one shout as Norah disappeared into the gully. ‘Go back, my darling!’ he yelled, forgetting that he was so far off that he might as well have shouted to the moon. Then he gave a groan, and dug his spurs into Bosun. I had mine as far as they’d go in Sirdar already!
“The smoke rolled on up the gully and in a minute it had covered it all up. I thought it was all up with Norah, too, and old Burrows behind me was sobbing for all he was worth. We raced and tore and yelled!