“Oh--you won't go till Manley comes! Please! I--I'd go crazy, here alone, and--and he might not come--he's frequently detained. I--I've such a horror of fires--” She certainly looked as if she had. She was sitting up straight, her hands held out appealingly to him, her eyes big and bright. “Sure I won't go if you feel that way about it.” Kent was half frightened at her wild manner. “I guess Man will be along pretty soon, anyway. He'll hit the trail as soon as he can get behind the fire, that's a cinch. He'll be worried to death about you. And you don't need to be afraid of prairie fires any more, Mrs. Fleetwood; you're safe. There can't be any more fires till next year, anyway; there's nothing left to burn.” He turned his face to the window and stared out somberly at the ravaged hillside. “Yes--you're dead safe, now!” “I'm such a fool,” Val confessed, her eyes also turning to the window, “If you want to go, I--” Her mouth was quivering, and she did not finish the sentence. “Oh, I'll stay till Man comes. He's liable to be along any time, now.” He glanced at her scorched, smoke-stained dress. “He'll sure think you made a hand, all right!” Val took the hint, and blushed with true feminine shame that she was not looking her best. “I'll go and change,” she murmured, and rose wearily. “But I feel as if the world had been 'rolled up in a scroll and burned,' as the Bible puts it, and as if nothing matters any more.” “It does, though. We'll all go right along living the same as ever, and the first snow will make this fire seem as old as the war--except to the cattle; they're the ones to get it in the neck this winter.” He went out and walked aimlessly around in the yard, and went over to the smoking remains of the stable, and to the heap of black ashes where the stacks had been. Manley would be hard hit, he knew. He wished he would hurry and come, and relieve him of the responsibility of keeping Val company. He wondered a little, in his masculine way, that women should always be afraid when there was no cause for fear. For instance, she had stayed alone a good many times, evidently, when there was real danger of a fire sweeping down upon her at any hour of the day or night; but now, when there was no longer a possibility of anything happening, she had turned white and begged him to stay--and Val, he judged shrewdly, was not the sort of woman who finds it easy to beg favors of anybody. There came a sound of galloping, up on the hill, and he turned quickly. Dull dusk was settling bleakly down upon the land, but he could see three or four horsemen just making the first descent from the top. He shouted a wordless greeting, and heard their answering yells. In another minute or two they were pulling up at the house, where he had hurried to meet them. Val, tucking a side comb hastily into her freshly coiled hair, her pretty self clothed all in white linen, appeased eagerly in the doorway. “Why--where's Manley?” she demanded anxiously.