rl up towards the sky. Even the
youngest child who's lived in the bush knows what that means. When all
the grass and everything is so dry, the least thing will start a fire.
Sometimes campers-out are careless, and the wind blows sparks; sometimes
even a piece of an old bottle left lying about will act as a
burning-glass. We didn't inquire the reason; all we knew was that we
must tear back to the farm as rapidly as we could. Bush fires spread
fearfully fast, and this one would probably sweep straight down the
gorge.

"With two animals gone, luck was against us. Billy took Minnie's pony,
Connie mounted behind Jake, and I made Minnie come with me on Brownie,
because he was so strong, and better able to bear the double burden than
Pamela's horse. It was well for us we were good riders, for we pelted
down that gully fit to break our necks. Brownie was a sure-footed little
beast, but the way he went slithering over rocks would have scared me
if I hadn't been more afraid of the fire behind. We knew it would be
touch and go whether we could save the farm or not. If the men were all
far away there would be very little chance, though we meant to do our
level best.

"Well, as I was saying, we just stampeded down the gully, and our horses
kept their feet somehow. I guess we arrived at the house like a tornado.
We yelled out our news, and coo-eed to some of the men we could see
working in the distance. They came running at once, and Mrs. Higson sent
up the rocket that was used on the farm as a danger-signal. Fortunately
the rest of the men had only gone a short way. They were back almost
directly, and everybody set to work to make a wide ring of bare land
round the farm. They cut down trees, and threw up earth, and burnt a
great patch of grass, and we children helped too for all we were worth.
We were only just in time. We could see the great cloud of smoke coming
down the valley, and as it grew nearer we heard the roaring or the fire.
It seemed to bear down on us suddenly in a great burning sheet. For a
moment or two the air was so hot that we could scarcely breathe, then
the flame struck our ring of bare land, and parted in two and passed on
either side of us, leaving the farm as an island. We watched it go
crackling farther down the valley, till at last it spent itself in a
rocky creek where it had nothing to feed on. All the place it had passed
over was burnt to cinders, a horrible black mass. Only the house and
the buildings