Anxiously now they waited, looking the while to see that no stray sparks set a fire behind them. Dirty, dusty, choking and smoke-begrimed, the cowboys fought the oncoming fire. Back of them their comrades worked hard to hold in check the frightened cattle, while others were racing back with the plowing outfit. And off to the west glowed, roared and crackled the menacing prairie fire. CHAPTER XX THE CHASE "Lively boys! Swat it out! Farther off to the left there, Skinny!" "All right, Pete! I get you!" "Dave, there's a flicker behind you. Swat it out!" "Out she goes!" answered the young cowboy. "Tubby, step along with a little more life!" the foreman cried. "Th' fire'll git yo' if yo' don't watch out!" "I'm goin' along as fast as I can, Pete." "Well, move faster. We've got to beat this fire!" Thus with friendly gibes and taunts Pete kept his men at work. The fire was coming nearer, but the burned strip was widening too, and soon would be too broad for the flames to leap over. They would separate, of course, and travel down on either side of the charred section, but the cattle might be saved. Up and down the length of the line of fire they had started to offset the other, keeping well back of it, and watching that no stray sparks or wisps of burning grass got behind them, Dave and his comrades worked hard. The immediate danger seemed to have passed, but a shift in the wind might come at any time, and render their task futile. "A little more, boys, and we'll call it done!" exclaimed the foreman, wiping his grimy, sweaty face on his sleeve. It did not greatly improve his countenance, however. Dave and the others lengthened the line of back-fire, and then, seeing that they had burned a strip sufficiently wide to make it comparatively certain that the oncoming fire would not leap over it, they turned back to help plow the furrows, or to keep the cattle in order and from stampeding. Leaping on their snorting ponies the cowboys rode back, leaving behind them two fires where before there had been but one. But soon the two would merge into one, leaving a broad, blackened barren strip, that contained no fuel for the flames. "It's lucky we struck that swale where the wind blew in the other direction," Dave remarked. "Mighty lucky," assented Pocus Pete. Of course where a strong wind is blowing a prairie fire toward one, another method of escape can be taken. If there is time a fire can be started where one is standing. The wind will carry it in the same direction as that in which the main blaze is advancing, but ahead of it. Then, as the grass is burned off, and the ground cools, one can follow the second fire, getting far enough in toward the center of the area one has burned to be safe. But this method can not be used where the second fire would consume buildings or cattle, as would have been the case here. "How'd you make out?" demanded Mr. Carson, as Dave and the others, smoke-begrimed and weary, rode up.