He was quickly brought to his senses, when the forgotten cartridge in his gun accidentally exploded and the bullet went whizzing past his ear. He dropped the gun nervously and finding a sharp piece of sapling he began to work furiously, but systematically at the line of fire.
The line was thin here, where it had really only that moment been started, and he made some headway. But as he worked along to where it had gotten a real start he saw that it was useless. Still he clung to his work. It was the only thing that his numbed brain could think of to do for the moment.
He dug madly with the sapling, throwing the loose dirt furiously after the fire as it ran away from him. He leaped upon the line of the fire and stamped at it with his boots until the fire crept up his trousers and shirt and up even to his hair. And still the fire ran away from him, away down the hill after its real prey. He looked farther on along the line and saw that it was not now a line but a charging, rushing river of flame that ran 134 down the hill, twenty feet at a jump. Nothing, nothing on earth, except perhaps a deluge of rain could now stop that torrent of fire.
He stepped back. There was nothing to be done here now, behind the fire. Nothing to be done but to get ahead of it and save what could be saved. He looked around for his horse.
Just then men came riding along the back of the line, Stocking and old Erskine Beasley in the lead. They came up to where Jeffrey was standing and looked on beyond moodily to where the body of Rogers lay.
Jeffrey turned and looked, too. A silence fell upon the little group of horsemen and upon the boy standing there.
Myron Stocking spoke at last:
“Mine got away, Jeff,” he said slowly.
Jeffrey looked up quickly at him. Then the meaning of the words flashed upon him.
“I didn’t do that!” he exclaimed hastily. “Somebody else shot him from the woods. My gun went off accidental.”