"
Winston looked steadily at the speaker, and the girl noticed with a
curious approval that he smiled.
"Perhaps it is, but I believe events will prove me right. In any case,
what I had the honor of telling you and Miss Barrington was the fact,"
he said.
Nobody spoke, and the girl was wondering by what means the strain could
be relieved, which, though few heard what Barrington said, all seemed
to feel, when out of the darkness came a second beat of hoofs, and by
and by a man swaying on the driving-seat of a jolting wagon swept into
the light from the windows. Then, there were voices outside, and a
breathless lad came in.
"A big grass fire coming right down on Courthorne's farm!" he said.
"It was tolerably close when I got away."
In an instant there was commotion, and every man in Silverdale Grange
was on his feet. For the most part, they took life lightly, and looked
upon their farming as an attempt to combine the making of dollars with
gentlemanly relaxation; but there were no laggards among them when
there was perilous work to be done, and they went out to meet the fire
joyously. Inside five minutes scarcely a horse remained in the
stables, and the men were flying at a gallop across the dusky prairie
laughing at the risk of a stumble in a deadly badger-hole. Yet, in the
haste of saddling, they found time to arrange a twenty-dollar
sweepstake and the allowance for weight.
Up the long rise, and down the back of it, they swept, stirrup by
stirrup and neck by neck, while the roar of the hoofs reft the silence
of the prairie like the roll of musketry.
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