Page:BM Bower - Her Prairie Knight.djvu/132

 A jagged line of leaping flame cut clean through the dark of the coulee. The smoke piled rosily above and before, and the sullen roar of it clutched the senses—challenging, sinister. Creeping stealthily, relentlessly, here a thin gash of yellow hugging close to the earth, there a bold, bright wall of fire, it swept the coulée from rim to rim.

"The wind is carrying it from us," Sir Redmond was saying in her ear. "Are you afraid to stop here alone? I ought to go down and lend a hand."

Beatrice drew a long gasp. "Oh, no, I'm not afraid. Go; there is Dick, down there."

"You're sure you won't mind?" He hesitated, dreading to leave her.

"No, no! Go on—they need you."

Sir Redmond turned and rode down the ridge toward the flames. His straight figure was silhouetted sharply against the glow.

Beatrice slipped off her horse and sat down upon a rock, dead to everything but the fiendish beauty of the scene spread out below her. Millions of sparks danced in and out among the smoke wreaths [which curled upward—now black, now red, now a dainty rose. Off to the left a coyote yapped shrilly, ending with his mournful howl. 128