p rose glow behind it--a
threatening illumination.

"Wow!" yelled Pratt.

He had just crawled out from beneath the wagon and was rising to his
feet. An object flew by him in the half-dusk, about shoulder-high, and
so swiftly that he was startled. He stepped back into a gopher-hole,
tripped, and fell full length.

"What in thunder was that?" he yelled, highly excited.

"A jack-rabbit," growled Mack. "And going some. Something scare't that
critter, sure's you're bawn!"

"Didn't you ever see a jack before, Pratt?" asked Frances, her tone a
little queer, he thought.

"Not so close to," admitted the young fellow, as he scrambled to his
feet. "Gracious! if he had hit me he'd have gone clear through me like a
cannon-ball."

It was only Frances who had realized the unexpected peril. She had tried
to keep her voice from shaking; but Mack noticed her tone.

"What's up, Miss?" he asked, getting to his legs, too.

"Fire!" gasped the range girl, clutching suddenly at Pratt's arm.

"You mean smoke," laughed Pratt. He saw her rubbing her eyes with her
other hand.

But Mack had risen, facing the west. He uttered a funny little cluck in
his throat and the laughing young fellow wheeled in wonder.

Along the horizon the glow was growing rapidly. A tongue of yellow flame
shot high in the air. A long dead, thoroughly seasoned tree, standing at
the forks of the trail, had caught fire and the flame flared forth from
its top like a banner.

_The prairie was afire!_

"Glory to Jehoshaphat!" groaned Mack Hinkman, again. "Who done that?"

"Goodness!" gasped Pratt, quite horror-stricken.

Frances gathered up the cooking implements and flung them into the
wagon. She had hobbled Molly and the grey pony; now she ran for them.

"Got that axle fixed, Mack?" she shouted over her shoulder.

"Not for no rough traveling, I tell ye sure, Miss Frances!" complained
the teamster. "That was a bad crack. Have to wait to fix it proper at
Peckham's." Then he added, _sotto voce_: "If we get the blamed
thing there at all."

"Don't say that, man!" gasped Pratt Sanderson. "Surely there's not much
danger?"

"This here spot will be scorched like an overdone flapjack in half an
hour," declared Hinkman. "We got to git!"

Frances heard him, distant as she was.

"Oh, Mack! you know we can't reach the river in half an hour, even if we
travel express speed."

"Well! what we goin' ter do then?" demanded the teamster. "Stay here and
fry?"

Pratt