Everything seemed working smoothly.  Andy moved to the extreme rear edge of the platform and poised there.

Five feet away from the hoop he dropped the riding whip.  Then he flung the reins across the horse’s neck.

With nerve and precision Andy started a forward somersault at just the right moment.

He felt a warm wave cross his face.  As he made the complete circle he knew that something was wrong.

“Ouch!” suddenly yelled out Alf.

A spurt of flame had shot against his hand that held the short stick attached to the hoop.

Alf let go the hoop and dropped it.  As Andy came down, righted again on the platform, one foot struck the narrow edge of the hoop.

He was in his stocking feet, and the contact cut the instep sharply.  It threw Andy off his balance.  He tried to right himself, but failed.  He tipped sideways, and was forced to jump to the ground.

The hoop fell forward against the horse’s mane.  With a wild neigh of terror and pain the animal leaped to one side, carrying away a section of rotten fence.  The blazing hoop now dropped around its neck.

A shout of dismay went up from the spectators.  Alf, nursing his burned fingers, looked scared.  Andy glanced sharply after the flying horse and spurted after it.  At that moment the school bell rang out, and the crowd made a rush in the direction of the building.  Alf Warren lagged behind.

“Go ahead,” directed Andy, “I’ll catch Dobbin.”

Ned Wilfer at that moment dashed up to Andy’s side.

“I’ll stay and help you,” he panted.

“Don’t be tardy, don’t get into trouble,” said Andy.

Dobbin was making straight across a meadow.  The kerosene soaked rags had pretty well burned out.  They smoked still, however, and in the breeze once in a while a tongue of flame would dart forth.

Dobbin passed a haystack, then another.  He was momentarily shut out from
Andy’s view on both occasions.

At his second reappearance Andy noticed that the animal had got rid of the hoop.  Dobbin now slackened his pace, snorted, and, laying down, rolled over and over in the stubble.

The horse righted himself as Andy came up with him, breathless.

“So, so, old fellow,” soothed Andy.  “Just singed the mane a little, that’s all.”

He patted the animal’s nose and seized the bridle to lead Dobbin back to the pasture from which he had started.

“Oh, gracious!” exclaimed Andy, abruptly dropping the bridle quicker than he had seized it.

Forty feet back on the course Dobbin had come, the second haystack was all ablaze.

There the horse had thrown off the fire hoop, or it had burned through at some part and had dropped there.

It had set the dry hay aflame.  As Andy looked, it spread out into a fan-like blaze, enveloping one whole side of the stack.

Andy was dumb with consternation.  However, he was not the boy to face a calamity inactively.