“What’s the idea?” Dave asked, but Dick was already running fast.

“Get your matches and come on!” Dick called back over his shoulder.

As speedily as could be done the others followed suit.  Dick reached the sun-burned strip of grass, whose nearer edge was some two hundred yards north of camp.

“Hey!  He’s starting a forest fire!” gasped Dan Dalzell, as he caught sight of young Prescott bending over the dried, yellowish grass.

“Scatter, all along the strip!” shouted Prescott, rising as soon as he had ignited a clump of grass.  “Get this whole strip of burned grass blazing.  It’s the only chance to save the camp—–­or ourselves!”

Dalzell shivered.  Nor could Dan understand how such a course would serve to save their camp.  But he saw the others following their leader’s orders.

“Get over the ground, Dan!” bellowed Dick, as he sprinted to another point.  “Start a lot of blazes!”

So Danny Grin fell in line with the movements of the others, though he felt not a little doubt as to the wisdom of the course.

Flame was now spurting up over more than an acre of the sun-baked strip of grass.

“Get a lot more of the grass going, fellows!” panted Dick, who was working like a beaver and dripping with perspiration.  “It’s our only hope.  Hustle!”

With the flames arose a dense cloud of smoke.  As the wind was from the southwest the smoke was in the faces of the onrushing cattle.

“There!  We’ve done all we can!” bellowed Dick, running down the line formed by his chums.  “Now, get back out of this roasting furnace.”

Close to the edge of the burning strip of grass the six high school boys now stood side by side gazing at their work.

“We’d better scoot!” counseled Danny Grin.

“Where can we go?” Dick shouted, in order to make himself heard over the crackling flames and the greater noise of the pounding hoofs.  “If we’re not safe behind a curtain of flame, there is no other place near where we’d be safer.”

Danny Grin turned to bolt, but Darry reached out, catching him by the collar and throwing him to the ground.

“Don’t be a fool, Danny, and don’t be panic stricken,” Darrin advised.  “We’re safer here, at least, than we can be anywhere else within a quarter of a mile.”

The bellow of a bull through the forest—–­a bellow taken up by other bulls—–­made all of the boys quake in their shoes.  But none of the lads ran away.

Gazing between the trees they soon made out a stirring sight.

On came the stampede, cattle packed so tightly that any animal falling could only be trampled to death by those behind.

“My, but that’s a grand sight!” cried Tom Reade.

Not one of the six boys but longed to take to his heels.  To them it seemed absolutely impossible for the cattle to turn aside as they must dash on through the blazing grass, such was the pressure from behind.  Yet not one of Dick & Co. turned to run.