Betty did not sleep. Thoughts drifted through her mind as fleecy clouds do across a summer sky. The magnet of them was this youth who had already drunk so deeply of life’s bitterness. He extraordinarily stimulated her interest.
It must have been near midnight that she heard quick voices and lifted her head to the cry of “Fire!” Sketchily she dressed and ran downstairs. The blaze was in the lower meadow where the wheat was gathered for the thresher. A great flame leaped skyward and filled the night with its reflection.
One of the men from the bunkhouse was running toward the unpent furnace. She caught up a saddle blanket from the porch and followed. In the lurid murk figures like marionettes moved to and fro. As she ran, she saw that there were three fires, not only one. This surprised her, for the distance between two of them was at least one hundred and fifty yards. It was strange that in this windless night a spark had traveled so far.
The roar of the conflagration reminded her of some huge living monster in a fury. Tongues of flame shot heavenward in vain menace to the stars.
“Stand back!” Forbes shouted at her. “All we can do is see it don’t spread.” He was flailing at a line of fire beginning to run in the dry stubble.
“How did it start?” she asked breathlessly.
“Fire-bugs.”
“You mean—on purpose?”
“Yep.”
“The tramps?”