"Well, as I was saying, we just stampeded down the gully, and our horses kept their feet somehow. I guess we arrived at the house like a tornado. We yelled out our news, and coo-eed to some of the men we could see working in the distance. They came running at once, and Mrs. Higson sent up the rocket that was used on the farm as a danger-signal. Fortunately the rest of the men had only gone a short way. They were back almost directly, and everybody set to work to make a wide ring of bare land round the farm. They cut down trees, and threw up earth, and burnt a great patch of grass, and we children helped too for all we were worth. We were only just in time. We could see the great cloud of smoke coming down the valley, and as it grew nearer we heard the roaring or the fire. It seemed to bear down on us suddenly in a great burning sheet. For a moment or two the air was so hot that we could scarcely breathe, then the flame struck our ring of bare land, and parted in two and passed on either side of us, leaving the farm as an island. We watched it go crackling farther down the valley, till at last it spent itself in a rocky creek where it had nothing to feed on. All the place it had passed over was burnt to cinders, a horrible black mass. Only the house and the buildings and a few fields round them were untouched. It was an awful birthday for poor Pamela." "Was your own farm hurt?" asked the girls breathlessly, as Rona paused in her story. "Not at all. You see it was in quite a different valley, and the fire hadn't been near. Jake rode home with me, to make sure I was safe. Dad hadn't even seen the smoke." "Suppose you hadn't noticed the fire when you were up in the hills?" "Then we should have been burnt to cinders, farm and all." "I think Rona's most thrilling adventure will have to end our Stunt," said Mrs. Arnold. "It's nearly eight o'clock. Time to wind up and get ready for supper. Attention, please! Each girl take her candle. Where's our pianist? Torch-bearer Catherine, will you start the Good-night Song?" "I'm a candidate now, thanks to you!" exulted Rona to Ulyth; "perhaps by Easter I may be a Wood-gatherer!" "It's something to work for, isn't it?" said Mrs. Arnold, who happened to overhear. CHAPTER IX A January Picnic