"Well," said Leland, "I want a look round, anyway. There has been a good deal of smoke about most of the day, and there's a big grass-fire, or probably more than one, somewhere out on the prairie. The wind's freshening, too." That, at least, was evident, for a rush of hot breeze came up out of the growing darkness, and during the last few hours the sun had been hidden by driving haze. Gallwey, who felt the wind upon his dusty cheek, turned and glanced down the long row of sheaves which ridged the edge of the prairie, for he guessed what his comrade was thinking. Behind the oats there rolled long, rippling waves of wheat, and, though they were dusky now, the daylight would have shown that they were tinted with bronze and gold. The tall stems were hot still, and the prairie sod was white and thick with fibrous dust. "Everything is about as safe as you could make it," he said. "We have good guards, and you ploughed check-furrows outside of them." "I did," said Leland, drily. "I cut them across the track of the usual winds. This one's an exception, and I have seen a fire jump guards that were 'most as wide. There would be trouble if a spark got in among the stubble, and I'm taking no chances just now." Gallwey made a little gesture of concurrence as he once more glanced down the long rows of sheaves. The stubble stood among them knee-high and above the strip of ploughing that cut it off from the prairie, for straw has no great value in that country. "Well," he said, "I daresay you are right. It's a little hard to see how a fire could get in, but, after all, one can never make quite sure of anything." He went away, and when he came back with the horse, Leland, swinging himself stiffly into the saddle, rode out across the rise into the silent prairie. Half an hour had passed before he met the waggon, but he then turned back with it, checking his lively horse as Carrie's team, which had travelled a considerable distance that day, plodded slowly through tussocky grass up a slope. There are places where the prairie runs dead level from horizon to horizon, but here and there it lifts in long, gentle rises, as the ocean does when the swell of a past gale disturbs its oily surface. Often the change is imperceptible until one comes to the dip where the incline softly falls away again. As they crossed the ridge, Carrie pulled the horses up and gazed about her. "It's a trifle impressive. No sky, and darkness on the unseen earth. There are only the fires moving in a void," she said.