The darkness served also to tinge the lowering sky to south and to westward with a steadily brightening lurid glare.

The Master had been right in his glum prophecy that a strong and sudden shift of wind would carry the conflagration through the tinder-dry undergrowth and dead trees of that side of the mountain, far faster than any body of fire-fighters could hope to check it.
The flame-reflection began to light the open spaces below the knoll, with increasing vividness.

The chill of early evening was counteracted waves of sullen heat, which the wind sent swirling before it.
Lad panted; from warmth as much as from nervousness.

He had gone all day without water.

And a collie, more perhaps than any other dog, needs plenty of fresh, cool water to drink; at any and all times.