A field of winter wheat adjoining the wagon road where they had started, and extending down to the bank of Big John, was the best of protection to the lower half of the farm. West from this, there was neither track nor field to break the tindery sweeps of prairie grass, until the strip of breaking on the north boundary of the pasture was reached. The old Santa Fe trail along which they were firing, fortunately extended to within some two hundred yards of the breaking, and was their safeguard against the ever-present danger of letting the fire get away from them to the rear. Older heads would have selected that hundred yards of high grass as a starting place, while they were fresh and best able to cope with its perils. Chicken Little was leaving it to the last. Swiftly as the three worked, the head fire was rapidly gaining on them. Again and again, one of them glanced toward the house in the hope that Jim Bart might have returned, or some neighbor have seen their danger and be on the way to help. Not a human being was in sight in any direction. Marian straightened up with a groan and glanced despairingly at the head fire. Sherm's gaze followed hers anxiously. "We've got to do better than this, girls. Here, Chicken Little, make a torch of some of those resinous weeds--those long crackly ones--and fire just as fast as you can. I'll follow with the mop and yell if I can't manage it." The plan worked well for a time--their haven of hope, the brown strip of breaking, seemed to move steadily nearer. But Chicken Little and Marian were fast becoming exhausted. The main fire was now so close that its smoke was beginning to drift in their faces. Prairie chickens and quail, startled and confused by the double line of flame, whirred above their heads, uncertain how to seek safety. A terrified jack rabbit leaped up almost at Sherm's feet. Rabbits, ground squirrels, one lone skunk, and even an occasional coyote, darted past them. Back at the road where they had begun, the head fire was already meeting their line of back fire and dying down in sullen smoke. Still, that hundred yards of blue stem was untouched. They paused a moment at its edge in hurried consultation. "Let's souse all the mops--dripping wet--and trail across first," suggested Chicken Little in short, labored gasps. She had been running for several minutes. "Yes, and then fire back. Christ!--we must hurry!" Sherm, too, was breathless. "Can you stick it out a few minutes longer, Marian?" Marian Morton's face was drawn and colorless. She nodded and rested a moment, leaning on her mop. For the next sixty-five yards the blows of the wet mops rained down with the precision of clock work. Twice the flames started in quick eddies back of their line, but, panting, the girls almost sobbing, they beat them back. The smoke was growing stifling. The wind, freshening, blew it from both fires full in their faces. They could see only a few feet ahead.