long-lashed whip over the ponies’ backs. The vehicle pitched and jerked, and traveled sometimes on as few as two wheels; the girls were jounced about unmercifully, and The Fox and Helen squealed.
“I’m – be – ing – jolt – ed – to – a – jel – ly!” gasped Heavy. “I’ll be – one sol – id bruise.”
But Bob did not propose to be left behind by Jane Ann and Tom Cameron, and Madge showed her heartlessness by retorting on the stout girl:
“You’ll be solid, all right, Jennie, never mind whether you are bruised or not. You know that you’re no ‘airy, fairy Lillian.’”
But the rate at which they were traveling was not conducive to conversation; and most of the time the girls clung on and secretly hoped that Bob would not overturn the buckboard. The ponies seemed desirous of running away all the time.
The rosy glow along the skyline increased; and now flames leaped – yellow and scarlet – rising and falling, while the width of the streak of fire increased at both ends. Luckily there was scarcely any wind. But the fire certainly was spreading.
The ponies tore along under Bob’s lash and Jane Ann and Tom did not leave them far behind. Over the rolling prairie they fled and so rapidly that Hicks and his aides from the ranch-house were not far in advance when the visitors came within unrestricted view of the flames.
Jane Ann halted and held up her hand to Bob to pull in the ponies when they topped a ridge which was the final barrier between them and the bottom where the fire burned. For several miles the dry grass, scrub, and groves of trees had been blackened by the fire. Light smoke clouds drifted away from the line of flame, which crackled sharply and advanced in a steady march toward the ridge on which the spectators were perched.
“My goodness me!” exclaimed Heavy. “You couldn’t put that fire out by spilling a bucket of water on it, could you?”
The fire line was several miles long. The flames advanced slowly; but here and there, where it caught in a bunch of scrub, the tongues of fire mounted swiftly into the air for twenty feet, or more; and in these pillars of fire lurked much danger, for when a blast of wind chanced to swoop down on them, the flames jumped!
Toiling up the ridge, snorting and bellowing, tails in air and horns tossing, drifted a herd of several thousand cattle, about ready to stampede although the fire was not really chasing them. The danger lay in the fact that the flames had gained such headway, and had spread so widely, that the entire range might be burned over, leaving nothing for the cattle to eat.
The rose-light of the flames showed the spectators all this – the black smooch of the fire-scathed land behind the barrier of flame, the flitting figures on horseback at the foot of the ridge, and the herd of steers going over the rise toward the north – and the higher foothills.
“But what can they do?” gasped Ruth.
“They’re back-firing,” Tom said, holding in his pony. Tom was a good horseman and it was evident that Jane Ann was astonished at his riding. “But over yonder where they tried it, the flames jumped ahead through the long grass and drove the men into their saddles again.”
“See what those fellows are doing!” gasped Madge, standing up. “They’re roping those cattle – isn’t that what you call it, roping?”
“And hog-tieing them,” responded Jane Ann, eagerly. “That’s Jib – and Bashful Ike. There! that’s an axe Ike’s got. He’s going to slice up that steer.”
“Oh, dear me! what for?” cried Helen.
“Why, the butchering act – right here and now?” demanded Heavy. “Aren’t thinking of having a barbecue, are they?”
“You watch,” returned the Western girl, greatly excited. “There! they’ve split that steer.”
“I hope it’s the big one that bunted the automobile,” cried The Fox.
“Well, you can bet it ain’t,” snapped Jane Ann. “Old Trouble-Maker is going to yield us some fun at brandin’ time – now you see.”
But they were all too much interested just then in what was going on near at hand – and down at the fire line – to pay much attention to what Jane Ann said about Old Trouble-Maker. Bashful Ike and Jib Pottoway had split two steers “from stem to stern.” Two other riders approached, and the girls recognized one of them as Old Bill himself.
“Tough luck, boys,” grumbled the ranchman. “Them critters is worth five cents right yere on the hoof; but that fire’s got to be smothered. Here, Jib! hitch my rope to t’other end of your half of that critter.”
In a minute the ranchman and the half-breed were racing down the slope, their ponies on the jump, the half of the steer jumping behind them. At the line of fire Hicks made his frightened horse leap the flames, they jerked the half of the steer over so that the cloven side came in contact with the flames, and then both men urged their ponies along the fire line, right in the midst of the smoke and heat, dragging the bleeding side of beef across the sputtering flames.
Ike and his mate started almost at once in the other direction, and both teams quenched the fire in good shape. Behind them other cowboys drew the halves of the second steer that had been divided, making sure of the quenching of the conflagration in the main; but there were still spots where the fire broke out again, and it was a couple of hours, and two more fat steers had been sacrificed, before it was safe to leave the fire line to the watchful care of only half a dozen, or so, of the range riders.
It had been a bitter fight while it lasted. Tom and Bob, and Jane Ann herself had joined in it – slapping out the immature fires where they had sprung up in the grass from sparks which flew from the greater fires. But the ridge had helped retard the blaze so that it could be controlled, and from the summit the girls from the East had enjoyed the spectacle.
Old Bill Hicks rode beside the buckboard when they started back for the ranch-house, and was very angry over the setting of the fire. Cow punchers are the most careful people in the world regarding fire-setting in the open. If a cattleman lights his cigarette, or pipe, he not only pinches out the match between his finger and thumb, but, if he is afoot, he stamps the burned match into the earth when he drops it.
“That yere half-crazy tenderfoot oughter be put away somewhares, whar he won’t do no more harm to nobody,” growled the ranchman.
“Do you expect he set it, Uncle?” demanded Jane Ann.
“So Scrub says. He seen him camping in the cottonwoods along Larruper Crick this mawnin’. I reckon nobody but a confounded tenderfoot would have set a fire when it’s dry like this, noways.”
Here Ruth put in a question that she had longed to ask ever since the fire scare began: “Who is this strange man you call the tenderfoot?”
“Dunno, Miss Ruth,” said the cattleman. “He’s been hanging ‘round yere a good bit since Spring. Or, he’s been seen by my men a good bit. When they’ve spoke to him he’s seemed sort of doped, or silly. They can’t make him out. And he hangs around closest to Tintacker.”
“You’re interested in that, Ruth!” exclaimed Helen.
“What d’you know about Tintacker, Miss?” asked Old Bill, curiously.
“Tintacker is a silver mine, isn’t it?” asked Ruth, in return.
“Tintacker
