ver, cried
out:

"See! There is smoke and fire ahead of us, too! What does it mean?"

For an instant they were all startled, and then, as Ruth looked behind
them, and saw the fiercer flames, and the blacker smoke there, she
gasped:

"We are hemmed in! Hemmed in by the prairie fire!"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ESCAPE

Paul pulled up the rushing horses with a jerk that set them back on
their haunches. There were cries of alarm from the interior of the
wagon, and from the front and rear peered out anxious faces.

"What is it? Oh, what is it?" cried Miss Dixon.

"There's a fire ahead of us," replied Alice, and her voice was calmer
now. She realized that their situation might be desperate, and that
there would be need of all the presence of mind each one possessed.

"A fire ahead of us!" repeated Miss Pennington. "Then let's turn back.
Probably Mr. Pertell wanted this to happen. It's all in the play. I
don't see anything to get excited about."

For once in her life she was more self-possessed than any of the others,
but it was due to the bliss of ignorance.

"Let's turn back," she suggested. "That seems the most reasonable thing
to do. And I wonder if you would mind if I rode on the seat next to
your friend Paul," she went on to Alice. "I'd like to have the center of
the stage just for once, as sort of a change," and her tone was a bit
malicious.

"I'm sure you're welcome to sit here," responded Alice, quietly. "But,
as for turning back, it is impossible. Look!" and she waved her hand
toward the rear. There the black clouds of smoke were thicker and
heavier, and the shooting flames went higher toward the heavens.

"Oh!" gasped Miss Pennington, and then she realized as she had not done
before--the import of Ruth's words:

"We are hemmed in!"

"Can't--can't we go back?" gasped Miss Dixon.

"The fire behind us is worse than that before us," said Paul, in a low
voice. "Perhaps, after all, we can make a rush for it."

"No, don't try dot!" spoke Mr. Switzer, and somehow, in this emergency,
he seemed very calm and collected. "Der horses vould shy und balk at der
flames," went on the German, who seemed far from being funny now. He was
deadly in earnest. "Ve can not drive dem past der flames," he added.

"But what are we to do?" asked Paul. "We can't stay here to be----"

He did not finish the sentence, but they all knew what he meant.

"Vait vun minute," suggested the German. He stood up on the seat so as