Somewhere in this boy--she persisted in thinking of him as a boy, perhaps because his great need so filled her with the desire to help him--there must be a weak strain. It was not, could not be, a vile one. She held to that steadily and surely, without any of the passionate insistence that doubt engenders. Ragged and dusty though he was physically, on the drift to destruction, cynically self-condemned, he was yet essentially clean and fine, a strain of the thoroughbred in him. That was her judgment, and she was prepared to wager all she had on the truth of it. Betty did not sleep. Thoughts drifted through her mind as fleecy clouds do across a summer sky. The magnet of them was this youth who had already drunk so deeply of life’s bitterness. He extraordinarily stimulated her interest. It must have been near midnight that she heard quick voices and lifted her head to the cry of “Fire!” Sketchily she dressed and ran downstairs. The blaze was in the lower meadow where the wheat was gathered for the thresher. A great flame leaped skyward and filled the night with its reflection. One of the men from the bunkhouse was running toward the unpent furnace. She caught up a saddle blanket from the porch and followed. In the lurid murk figures like marionettes moved to and fro. As she ran, she saw that there were three fires, not only one. This surprised her, for the distance between two of them was at least one hundred and fifty yards. It was strange that in this windless night a spark had traveled so far. The roar of the conflagration reminded her of some huge living monster in a fury. Tongues of flame shot heavenward in vain menace to the stars. “Stand back!” Forbes shouted at her. “All we can do is see it don’t spread.” He was flailing at a line of fire beginning to run in the dry stubble. “How did it start?” she asked breathlessly. “Fire-bugs.” “You mean--on purpose?” “Yep.” “The tramps?” “I ain’t sayin’ who.” He shouted to make his voice heard above the crackle of the bellowing red demon that had been set loose. Already he spoke hoarsely from a throat roughened by smoke. “Where’s Dad?” she called back. “Don’t know. Ain’t seen him since I left the house.” Dusty gave information. “Saw him runnin’ toward the creek awhile ago.” Almost instantly Betty knew why. He, too, must have guessed that this fire had come from no chance spark, but of set design. No doubt he was trying to head off the incendiary. “Just which way?” she asked the cowpuncher. Dusty jerked a thumb to the left. The girl turned and moved swiftly in the direction of the fringe of bushes that rose as a vague line out of the darkness. She believed her father’s instinct was true. Whoever had fired the stacks would retreat to the willows and make his escape along the creek bed, hiding in the bushes if the pursuit grew close.