* * * * *

For when the clamour arose outside the house, Buck Daniels had run to
the window. For many reasons he had not taken off his clothes this
night, but had lain down on the bed and folded his hands behind his head
to wait. With the first outcry he was at the window and there he saw the
flames curling above the roof of the barn, and next, by that wild light,
how Dan Barry raced through the dangerous corral, and then he heard the
shrill neighing of Satan, and saw Dan disappear in the smoking door of
the barn.

Fear drew Buck Daniels one way but a fine impulse drew him another. He
turned away from the window with a curse; he turned back to it with a
curse, and then, muttering: "He went through hell for me; and him and me
together, we'll go through hell again!" he ran from the room and
thundered down the crazy stairs.

As he left the house he found Kate Cumberland, and they went on
together, running without a word to each other. Only, when he came
beside her, she stopped short and flashed one glance at him. By that
glance he knew that she understood why he was there, and that she
accepted his sacrifice.

They hurried around the outer edge of the corrals, and as they
approached the flaming barn from one side the men from the bunk-house
rushed up from the other. It was Buck Daniels who reached Dan as the
latter stumbled back from the door of the barn, surrounded by a
following cloud of smoke, and fell stumbling to the ground. And Buck
raised him.

The girl was instantly beside them.

She had thrown on a white dressing gown when she rose from bed. It was
girded high across her breast, and over it showered her bright hair,
flashing like liquid gold in growing light. She, now, received the
semi-conscious burden of Dan Barry, and Buck Daniels stepped forward,
close to the smoke. He began to shout directions which the two watchers
behind the hill could not hear, though they saw his long arms point and
gesticulate and they could see his speaking lips. But wild confusion
was on the crowd of cowpunchers. They ran here and there. One or two
brought buckets of water and tossed the contents uselessly into the
swirling, red-stained hell of smoke. But most of them ran here and
there, accomplishing nothing.

"An' all this come from one little match, Mac," cried Haw-Haw
ecstatically at the ear of Mac Strann. "All what we're seein'! Look at
the gal, Mac! She's out of her wits! She's foolin' about