for the clearing
had been done but roughly,--but it was speedily stamped out by the heavy
boots of the watchers.

The spectacle, as the fire swept away before the wind, was fine in the
extreme. The party seemed enclosed between two walls of fire. The main
conflagration was now fearfully close, burning flakes were already
falling amongst them, and the sound of the fire was like the hiss of the
surf upon a pebbly beach.

'Now,' Mr. Hardy said, 'forward with the horses. Every one to his own
animal. Put your ponchos over your own heads as well as your horses'.'

In another minute the party stood clustered upon the black and smoking
ground which the fire they had kindled had swept clear. There, for five
minutes, they remained without moving, unscorched by the raging element
around them, but half-choked with the smoke.

Then Mr. Hardy spoke: 'It is over now. You can look up.'

There was a general expression of astonishment as the heads emerged from
their wrappers, and the eyes recovered sufficiently from the effects of
the blinding smoke to look round. Where had the fire gone? Where,
indeed! The main conflagration had swept by them, had divided in two
when it reached the ground already burnt, and these columns, growing
farther and farther asunder as the newly-kindled fire had widened, were
already far away to the right and left, while beyond and between them
was the fire that they themselves had kindled, now two miles wide, and
already far in the distance.

These fires in the Pampas, although they frequently extend over a vast
tract of country, are seldom fatal to life. The grass rarely attains a
height exceeding three feet, and burns out almost like so much cotton. A
man on horseback, having no other method of escape, can, by blindfolding
his horse and wrapping his own face in a poncho, ride fearlessly through
the wall of fire without damage to horse or rider.

It was only, therefore, the young hands who had felt any uneasiness at
the sight of the fire; for the settlers were in the habit of regularly
setting fire to the grass upon their farms every year before the rains,
as the grass afterwards springs up fresh and green for the animals. Care
has to be taken to choose a calm day, when the flames can be confined
within bounds; but instances have occurred when fires so commenced have
proved most disastrous, destroying many thousands of animals.

'There is nothing to do but to remain where we are until morning,' Mr.
Ha