She felt that she was out of touch.
She was out on the prairie at night, miles away from any house, driving
a water-wagon for the men to put out a prairie fire. She had driven a
coaching-party once on a wager; but she had never driven a lumber-wagon
with barrels of water before. She could not think of any girl she knew
who had.
It was a new experience, certainly, but she found no pleasure in it; she
was tired and sleepy, and her eyes and throat smarted cruelly with the
smoke. She looked back to the hill she had just left, and it seemed a
long, long time since she sat upon a rock up there and watched the
little, new fire grow and grow, and the strange shadows spring up from
nowhere and beat it vindictively till it died.
Again she wondered vaguely who had done it; not Keith Cameron, surely,
for Sir Redmond had all but accused him openly of setting the range
afire. Would he stamp out a blaze that was just reaching a size to do
mischief, if left a little longer? No one would have seen it for hours,
probably. He would undoubtedly have let it run, unless--But who else
could have set the fire? Who else would ,want to see the Pine Ridge
country black and barren? Dick said Keith Cameron would not sit down and
take his medicine--perhaps Dick knew he would do this thing.
As the fighters moved on across the coulee she drove the wagon to keep
pace with them.
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