The glare of the distant fire was now brighter, and a dull roar could be heard. The cattle seemed to be aware of the danger, and it required hard work on the part of the punchers to keep them from breaking. With shouts and yells, with lashings from their shortened lariats and with shots from their heavy revolvers the punchers did manage, however, to keep the creatures in a compact mass. Some cowboys, leaping into the chuck wagon, had started to drive to the ranch buildings to bring back plows and plow horses. They might, if they were lucky, return in time to help in keeping back the flames. But the main fighting force, which Dave joined, rode straight toward the onrushing flames in the desperate endeavor to fight fire with fire. They would need to reach a spot, though, where the wind was blowing away from them and the cattle, and toward the main blaze. Such places can often be found in the rolling prairie, with its many glades and swales. Then, too, the heat of the big fire often creates a vacuum, or back draft, causing air to rush in toward the leaping flames, and making a wind blow toward them that will carry with it the fire started to offset the menacing one. "Here's a good spot!" exclaimed Pocus Pete at length. "Scatter along here, boys, and set the grass ablaze." Leaping from the backs of their ponies, the cowboys gave the reins into the hands of one of their number to hold, for the horses could not be trusted to stand alone with the fire coming ever nearer them. And without their mounts the cowboys would be lost. The spot where the party now found itself was down in a little depression, or swale, and the wind was blowing away from them and toward the main conflagration. "Light, boys!" cried the foreman, as he struck a match and applied it to a bunch of dried grass that made a rude torch. The others, including Dave, did the same. Soon little spurts of flame in the grass showed where the contending fire was started. "Watch it now, boys!" Pocus Pete warned them. "If you see it starting to creep back on you swat it out. Take your blankets, and see if you can't find a water hole. Sozzle your blankets in that and swat the blaze if she starts to run back on you." A spring, or, rather a mud-hole that passed for one, was found, and in this the blankets were wet. Then, as the contending fire burned onward, some little tongues of flame crept back toward the spot where the cattle had been left. These were "swatted" with the wet blankets as fast as seen. "Well, she's going!" cried Dave, as he saw the fire they had set to fight the other leaping onward as though to meet the blazing enemy. "That ought to burn a safety strip." "If th' wind doesn't turn," murmured Pocus Pete. "If th' wind doesn't turn."