We got the saddles and flung them on the ponies, cinching them good and tight, and then put on the bridles.
"We are going to run for it," I cried in sheer amazement.
"No," said Jim in disgust, "what chance would we have. That fire would catch us before we got fairly started and I don't trust those Indians till they have been burned over once. They can scheme as well as we."
"Don't you think they have skipped out before this?" I asked.
"I wouldn't trust 'em to do what any white man might expect. Look out, Jo, she's coming now."
The embers began to fall all around us, but there was nothing for them to catch, as we had taken good care, you may be sure, to have every bit of brush cleared from our fort. Fortunately for us our hill was wooded only around the base.
Even then the heat was intense. It seemed to me as though my skin was shriveling up, and every once in awhile the waves of smoke would almost submerge us in their acrid, stifling vapor.
Then we were in the midst of it as it swept around our hill on all sides and the great pines below were turned into flaming spears that seemed to thrust themselves at our stronghold.
It was like being in the thick of a great battle, the crackling, the roar of the flames and stifling smoke, the crash of falling trees. It seemed like an endless time, but it could only have been a few minutes.
Gasping, only half-alive, like survivors of a wreck who reach the shore only after having been overwhelmed with terrible seas, we leaned against our cowed ponies (they were originally cow ponies) with our heads down.