in a dozen places!"

A bright glow lay across the far, upper end of Drop Off Valley. At
first one might have done as Steve Packard did and wondered what had
happened to the sun. The sky had merely brightened warmly, slowly,
gradually, showing a hint of pink. And then, as the bone-dry grass
here and there had caught, vivid streaks of flame and a veritable
devil's dance of a myriad sparks shot high skyward. And, as Steve had
cried out, not in one place only, but in a dozen spots had the fires
been lighted.

"To herald the wrathful coming of Hell-Fire Packard!"

Such was the thought springing full-fledged into Terry's brain, into
Steve's, into Yellow Barbee's. A chain of fires had been started
across the whole width of the feeding grounds. Now the rising wind
made of it a sudden burning barrier that extended from side to side of
Drop Off Valley, came rushing toward the lower end, threatening to
leave but a black charred devastation of the precious pasturage.

Barbee had run and thrown himself upon his horse. Steve had grasped
the dragging reins of Andy Sprague's mount. Terry saw him and his two
cowboys swing about toward the upper end.

"Terry!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Down the cliffs again; quick!
The fire is coming this way; the herds will stampede!"

There was only the sound of thudding hoofs as the three men rode
furiously to meet the menace the dawn had brought and seek to grapple
with it. Then that sound had gone and its place, for a little taken by
heavy silence, gradually gave way to new sounds. The crack of rifles,
faintly heard--thin voices of men shouting a long way off--a sound like
that of a distant sea, moving restlessly--grown to suggest the coming
of a storm that ever swelled in violence--and then a deep and deepening
rumble, like thunder.

The herd had stampeded.

To Terry there came then, for the first time in her life, the sense of
utter helplessness and hopelessness. At least the others were doing
something, no matter how fruitless it might prove, while she was doing
nothing. Steve was riding full-tilt to meet the herd. She saw him and
his men, strange figures in the uncertain light, looming big against
the dawn sky and the fires' glow. They were shouting, waving their
arms. Then, going down over a swell of earth they were lost to her.

Again and again there came to her the sound of shots and men's voices
shouting, cursing, yelling wild commands, a rising clamor meant to