Canada, Western -- Fiction; Farm life -- Canada -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction
None of them knew how long this lasted, but, though they had won so far,
the fight was not yet over. Presently the smoke that streamed past them
was torn aside again, and a red light shone along the line. The second
fire was coming on, and there was still another behind. The flickering
radiance showed the dusky figures that leant upon the shovel-hafts or
shook out the half-dried bags. Here and there it also showed a blackened
face, surmounted by frizzled hair.
Gallwey, as it happened, found himself close to Leland, and looked at
the latter with a little sardonic smile, not knowing that he himself was
not much more prepossessing in his outward appearance. Leland's wide hat
hung shapelessly over his blackened face. There was a charred gap in the
front brim, as well as several big holes in his jean jacket, which was
badly rent. Blood was trickling from one of his hands.
"I don't know if I did that myself, or if somebody hit me with a
shovel," he said. "Anyway, when I fell down, one or two of them ran over
me."
Then he turned fiercely towards the moving fires. "The next one's
bigger. If the wind would only drop!"
Gallwey, who fancied by the way the smoke drove past them that there was
very little chance of it, coughed. "It's evidently not going to. If we
had only a little water, one could be more content. I feel as if there
was not a drop of moisture anywhere in me."
One or two of the others heard him, and cries went up.
"Water!" said somebody. "Is there any?"
"I'm 'most as dry as this bag. It will blaze next time," said another
man. "My jacket's singed to tinder, too. How're we going to do when our
clothes start burning?"
Leland stood up where the rest could dimly see him on the spoke of a
binder wheel.
"You should have thought of that before, boys," he said. "Anyway, you'll
have to hold out until the thing's over. It's too far to the homestead,
and nobody could bring up a team."
Just then a man further back along the line flung out a pointing hand.
"Well," he said, "I guess that looks as if somebody was trying."
The sound of a trampling in the stubble rose through the crackle of the
fire, and a half-frantic team and a waggon materialised out of the
vapour. A slim, dimly-seen figure swayed with the jolting upon the
driving-seat, and, when the watchers saw another apparently clinging to
the load behind, a confused shouting broke out.
"Wet bags and water. Get hold of the beasts, some of you. It's Mrs.
Leland. She's a daisy!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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