She got up, drew her hair into some kind of shape, and scrambled a little way up the steep bank. Clouds of smoke were rolling up the valley. She did not grasp the significance of the fact at the first glance, but in a moment it impacted home to her. The wind had changed! Her help now would be needed, not by Mrs. Landson, but probably at their own camp. She sprang on her horse, re-crossed the stream, and set out on a gallop for the camp. On the way she had to ride through one thin line of fire, which she accomplished successfully. Through the smoke she could dimly see Transley’s gang fighting the back-fires. She knew that was in good hands, and hastened on to the camp. Zen had had prairie experience enough to know that in hours like this there is almost sure to be something or somebody, in vital need, overlooked.
She galloped into the camp and found only Tompkins there. He had already run a little back-fire to protect the tents and the chuck-wagon.
“How goes it, Tompkins?” she cried, bursting upon him like a courier from battle.
“All set here, Ma’am,” he answered. “All set an’ safe. But they’ll never hold the main fire; it’ll go up the valley hell-scootin’,—beggin’ your pardon, Ma’am.”
“Anyone live up the valley?”
“There is. There’s the Lints—squatters about six miles up—it was from them I got the cream an’ fresh eggs you was good enough to notice, Ma’am. An’ there’s no men folks about; jus’ Mrs. Lint an’ a young herd of little Lints; least, that’s all was there las’ night.”
“I must go up,” said Zen, with instant decision. “I can get there before the fire, and as the Lints are evidently farmers there will be some plowed land, or at least a plow with which to run a furrow so that we can start a back-fire. Direct me.”
Tompkins directed her as to the way, and, leaving a word of explanation to be passed on to her father, she was off. A half hour’s hard riding brought her to Lint’s, but she found that this careful settler had made full provision against such a contingency as was now come about. The farm buildings, implements, stables, everything was surrounded, not by a fire-guard, but by a broad plowed field. Mrs. Lint, however, was little less thankful for Zen’s interest than she would have been had their little steading been in danger. She pressed Zen to wait and have at least a cup of tea, and the girl, knowing that she could be of little or no service down the valley, allowed herself to be persuaded. In this little harbor of quiet her mind began to arrange the day’s events. The tragic happening at the river was as yet too recent to appear real; had it not been for the touch of her wet clothing Zen could have thought that all an unhappy dream of days ago. She reflected that neither Tompkins nor Mrs. Lint had commented upon her appearance. The hot sun had soon dried her outer apparel, and her general dishevelled condition was not remarkable on such a day as this.
The wind had gone down as the afternoon waned, and the fire was working up the valley leisurely when Zen set out on her return trip. A couple of miles from the Lint homestead she met its advance guard. It was evening now; the sun shone dull red through the banked clouds of smoke resting against the mountains to the west; the flames danced and flickered, advanced and receded, sprang up and died down again, along mile after mile of front. It was a beautiful thing to behold, and Zen drew her horse to a stop on a hill-top to take in the grandeur of the scene. Near at hand frolicking flames were working about the base of the hill, and far down the valley and over the foothills the flanks of the fire stretched like lines of impish infantry in single file.
Suddenly she heard the sound of hoofs, and a rider drew up at her side. She supposed him one of Transley’s men, but could not recall having seen him in the camp. He sat his horse with an ease and grace that her eye was quick to appraise; he removed his broad felt hat before he spoke; and he did not call her “ma’am.”