divert the blind rush of frightened beasts, to turn them to right and
left so that they might scramble out of the valley before they came to
the lower end where Terry stood--where was the yawning chasm down into
which many a great, terror-filled body was doomed to plunge to
annihilation unless the way were found to swing the flood of fear aside
in time.

Barbee and Bandy Oliver and the other boys were obeying Steve's
commands, doing all that they could, seeking frantically to split the
herd and divert it and so save it. But all of the time the wind
strengthened, the fires rose higher and higher against the sky, the
sparks soared to rarer altitudes, were flung further out, new fires
were catching everywhere.

The tall, dry grass was burning in a hundred places. The herd,
sweeping on, was snorting its terror, yielding absolutely to the blind
instinct of flight. And steadily the thunderous murmuring sound from
the hoof-smitten earth rose and swelled. Closer and closer they came.
Terry could distinguish Steve's voice.

In her hand were the matches he had given her in order that she might
read again his grandfather's letter. A little gasp broke from her
lips. The letter fluttered from her hand, no longer of the slightest
importance and on the wings of the wind went outward and then down into
the chasm. She ran forward swiftly, a hundred yards from the
precipice's edge. She struck a match, stopped briefly, set it to the
grass.

The flame caught, leaping up avidly, licking hungrily for more fuel, a
demon for desire, newly born, yearning to rage a giant of destruction.
The girl snatched a handful of the burning grass and ran with it; a
little further forward, then to the side, scattering burning wisps as
she went.

Everywhere that a spark fell it made of itself a blaze. Already, in
twenty seconds, she had created a broad belt of flame that rose swiftly
and spread to right and left.

About her everywhere the air grew stifling, hot, filled with smoke and
ash and cinder so that as she ran her lungs began to hurt her. But she
kept on. Nearer were the herds coming; Steve and his men had not been
able to stem the mad torrent; not yet had they succeeded in turning it.

And in another handful of minutes the black, tight-jammed mass of big
panting bodies would be hurtling out into space. Unless she made her
fire extend from side to side in a wall of leaping, roaring, swirling
menace that would do what no men and h