"Oh, yes. So have I," agreed Nort. "I forgot about them. Whew!
It's getting hot," he added, as a shift in the wind brought into
their faces a wave of heated and smoke-filled air.

"We'd better not keep on any nearer," decided Bud. "Let's ride
around to the other side, and see what we can see."

Accordingly they turned to the right, as the fire seemed less
fierce on that quarter, and continued on. They had been riding
over a stretch of the valley carpeted with rich, dark green and
fairly damp grass. Bud and his cousins knew that when the fire
reached this stretch it would die out for lack of fuel.

In fact the blaze, as they could see, was confined to an area
about a mile square, but of irregular shape. So far none of the
cattle in sight had shown more than momentary fear of the blaze.
They had run some distance from it and then stopped, sometimes
going on with their eating, and again pausing to look with fear-
widened eyes at the sight of the leaping tongues of fire.

"But we can't tell what's going on behind that smoke screen,"
declared Bud. "Some rustlers may have started it to hide their
work."

"Any of your men over in that direction?" asked Dick.

"They aren't supposed to be," Bud replied. "Of course some of 'em
may have ridden over when they saw the smoke, same as we did. But
I don't see how any of 'em could have reached here as soon as we
did."