She sprang out of the wagon and looked about her.  The smoke crest, black, red-shot, was coming close.  The grass here would carry it.  Perhaps yonder on the flint ridge where the cover was short—­why had she not thought of that long ago?  It was half a mile, and no sure haven then.

She ran, her shawl drawn about her head—­ran with long, free stride, her limbs envigored by fear, her full-bosomed body heaving chokingly.  The smoke was now in the air, and up the unshorn valley came the fire remorselessly, licking up the under lying layer of sun-cured grass which a winter’s snow had matted down.

She could never reach the ridge now.  Her overburdened lungs functioned but little.  The world went black, with many points of red.  Everywhere was the odor and feel of smoke.  She fell and gasped, and knew little, cared little what might come.  The elemental terror at last had caught its prey—­soft, young, beautiful prey, this huddled form, a bit of brown and gray, edged with white of wind-blown skirt.  It would be a sweet morsel for the flames.

Along the knife-edged flint ridge which Molly had tried to reach there came the pounding of hoofs, heavier than any of these that had passed.  The cattle were stampeding directly down wind and before the fire.  Dully, Molly heard the lowing, heard the far shouts of human voices.  Then, it seemed to her, she heard a rush of other hoofs coming toward her.  Yes, something was pounding down the slope toward her wagon, toward her.  Buffalo, she thought, not knowing the buffalo were gone from that region.

But it was not the buffalo, nor yet the frightened herd, nor yet her mules.  Out of the smoke curtain broke a rider, his horse flat; a black horse with flying frontlet—­she knew what horse.  She knew what man rode him, too, black with smoke as he was now.  He swept close to the wagon and was off.  Something flickered there, with smoke above it, beyond the wagon by some yards.  Then he was in saddle and racing again, his eyes and teeth white in the black mask of his face.

She heard no call and no command.  But an arm reached down to hers, swept up—­and she was going onward, the horn of a saddle under her, her body held to that of the rider, swung sidewise.  The horse was guided not down but across the wind.

Twice and three times, silent, he flung her off and was down, kindling his little back fires—­the only defense against a wildfire.  He breathed thickly, making sounds of rage.

“Will they never start?” he broke out at last.  “The fools—­the fools!”

But by now it was too late.  A sudden accession in the force of the wind increased the speed of the fire.  The little line near Molly’s wagon spared it, but caught strength.  Could she have seen through the veils of smoke she would have seen a half dozen fires this side the line of the great fire.  But fire is fire.

Again he was in saddle and had her against his thigh, his body, flung any way so she came with the horse.  And now the horse swerved, till he drove in the steel again and again, heading him not away from the fire but straight into it!