Page:BM Bower - Her Prairie Knight.djvu/137

 Wait a minute! Pete, drive the wagon ahead, there I guess we'd better begin on the other end and work this way. Come on—there's too much hot air here." They clattered on across the coulee, kicking hot ashes up for the wind to seize upon. Beatrice went slowly up to Dick, feeling all at once very tired and out of heart with it all.

"Dick," she called, in an anxious little voice, "Rex has run away from me. What shall I do?"

Dick straightened stiffly, his hands upon his aching loins, and peered through the smoke at her.

"I guess the only thing to do, then, is to get into the wagon over there. You can drive, Trix, if you want to, and that will give us another man here, I was just going to have some one take you home; now—the Lord only knows!—you're liable to have to stay till morning. Rex will go home, all right; you needn't worry about him."

He bent to the work again, and she could hear the wet sack thud, thud upon the ground. Other sacks and blankets went thud, thud, and down here at close range the fire was not so beautiful as it had been from the hilltop. Down here the glamour was gone. She climbed up to the high wagon seat and took the reins from the man, who immediately 133