Chicken Little obediently made trips once an hour until noon; she could detect nothing to occasion alarm. After dinner her mother set her to making doughnuts and she forgot all about it. Mrs. Morton was not so well to-day and Jane persuaded her to go to bed. Drawing the blinds to, she put a hot iron to her mother's feet and left her to sleep. The clock striking four attracted Jane's attention as she came back into the sitting room, the last doughnut was draining in the collender while Annie mopped the kitchen floor. She stood irresolute for an instant, undecided whether to read or to fetch some walnuts from the smokehouse for Sunday. Dr. Morton always liked to have a basket of walnuts handy on Sunday afternoons. "I guess I'll get the nuts, and perhaps I'd better run up the hill to be sure that old fire hasn't had a change of heart. Father says often some little side fire smolders and burns after the main fire is all out. Though I guess one would have showed up long before this if there'd been any this time." She argued with herself for two or three minutes, finally deciding that it wasn't much trouble to go take a look, even if it were foolish. Just outside the door she met Sherm and he walked up to the crest with her. Half way up the slope Chicken Little suddenly stopped, sniffing suspiciously. "Sherm, I believe I smell smoke again." Sherm stopped also to draw in a long breath. He did not wait to announce his observations, but broke into a run for the top of the hill. Chicken Little followed him a length in the rear. Sherm took one look and gave vent to a surprised whistle. Chicken Little stared, fascinated, at a tiny line of fire burning merrily on a hillside not a mile distant. "Jumping Jehosophat!" exclaimed Sherm, "how did it ever creep up on us this way?" Jane was thinking rapidly. She scarcely noticed what he said. "Sherm, Frank left the water barrels and the mops and everything on the wagon, didn't he?" "Yes--what----" "Are the barrels filled?" "Yep, do you think----" "Sherm, run hitch the bay team to the wagon quick. I'll get Marian and warn Annie not to tell Mother--she's asleep still. Hurry, Sherm, every minute's precious!" Sherm's "All right" drifted from him on the run. He was already on his way to the stable. He realized that Jane knew more about fire fighting than he did. Jane hurried to the cottage. Marian listened to her news, white to the lips. "Annie can take Jilly. Perhaps I'd better ride over after Mr. Benton." "Marian," protested Chicken Little, "there isn't time. And if Mr. Benton's home, he has probably seen it, too, and is trying to protect his own place. No, we've got to work fast. Unless we can run a fire guard before the fire reaches that tall grass on the division line, the whole place is a goner! It isn't coming very fast yet. Here, I'll run with Jilly over to the house and you put on a pair of Frank's trousers--your skirts might catch. I'll get that old pair of Ernest's. Hurry, Marian, hurry!"