"The beasts bolted with us just after we'd gone through the worst of it, and I fancy they took the plow along.

Any way, I didn't see what became of them, and don't fancy anybody would have worried much about them after being trampled on by a horse in the lumbar region." Dane saw that the man was limping and white in face, and asked no more questions.

It was evident to him that Courthorne would be where he was most needed, and he did what he could with those who were adding furrow to furrow across the path of the fire.

It rolled up to them roaring, stopped, flung a shower of burning filaments before it, sank and swept aloft again, while the sparks rained down upon the grass before the draught it made.
Blackened men with smoldering clothes were, however, ready, and they fought each incipient blaze with soaked grain bags, and shovels, some of them also, careless of blistered arms, with their own wet jackets.
As fast as each fire was trampled out another sprang into life, but the parent blaze that fed them sank and died, and at last there was a hoarse cheer.

They had won, and the fire they had beaten passed on divided across the prairie, leaving the homestead unscathed between.
Then they turned to look for their leader, and did not find him until a lad came up to Dane.
"Courthorne's back by the second furrows, and I fancy he's badly hurt," he said.