she said. She pointed to where a
dark haze, like shattered thunder-clouds, was rising from the sky-line.

"It's been set by that confounded engine," declared the biggest brother.
He seized the reins and brought the blue mare to a stop.

The little girl stood upon the seat, holding his hand to steady herself.
"Don't you think we'd better drive home?" she questioned anxiously.

"Well, I don't know," he replied. "Seems to me like the smoke's gettin'
thicker awful fast. We don't notice it much because the sun's so
bright. But it ain't more 'n eight or ten miles away, and comin' like
sixty. It could make the farm ahead of us. We'll just get on to the
back-fire at the station and keep from gettin' singed."

They sat silent for a moment. Then the biggest brother turned about and
clucked to the blue mare. But the little girl continued to squint
against the sun until, in descending into a draw, the black haze behind
was lost to view.

The biggest brother kept the blue mare at a good gait, and the road,
with its narrow strip of weedy grass down the center, flew by under the
bouncing buckboard. Soon the long, gradual incline leading up from the
ravine was climbed. At its top, on a high bench, the horse halted for
breath. Both the biggest brother and the little girl at once rose to
their feet. As they did so, they uttered a cry.

A moving wall of animals, that stretched far to north and south, was
heading swiftly toward them from beyond the river bluffs. They could
hear the sound of thousands of hoofs, like the ceaseless roll of dulled
drums, and across the black level of the wall they saw a bank of smoke,
into which leaped tongues of flame.

Without losing a second, the biggest brother began to urge on the blue
mare. The black-snake was missing from its place in the buckboard. So
he used the ends of the reins. He saw that the wind, which had been
brisk all day, was now redoubled in strength, increased by another that
found its source in the advancing fire. He wondered if he had not better
unhitch and let the horse carry them both, abandoning the buckboard to
its fate on the road. Yet he feared to lose any time, and, reflecting
that perhaps the spirited creature would refuse to ride double, he
decided to hurry on without making the change. As the mare responded to
the rein ends, something like a prayer moved his dry, firm-set lips. For
he knew that they were menaced not only by a conflagration, but by a mad
stampede.

"Th