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The Bush-Fire
by
“But, father–“
“Get off that horse and go inside,” roared Wall.
“I–I won’t.”
“What!” He darted forward as though to drag her from the saddle, but she swung her horse away.
“Stop! Where are you going?”
“To help Ross,” said Mary. “He had no one to send for help.”
“Then go the same way as your brother!” roared her father; “and if you show your nose back again I’ll horse-whip you off the run!”
“I’ll go, father,” said Mary, and she was away.
IV
THE FIRE AT ROSS’S FARM
Ross’s farm was in a corner between the ridges and the creek. The fire had come down from the creek, but the siding on that side was fairly clear, and they had stopped the fire there. It went behind the ridge and ran up and over. The ridge was covered thickly with scrub and dead grass; the wheat-field went well up the siding, and along the top was a bush face with only a narrow bridle-track between it and the long dead grass. Everything depended on the wind. Mary saw Ross and Mrs Ross and the daughter Jenny, well up the siding above the fence, working desperately, running to and fro, and beating out the fire with green boughs. Mary left her horse, ran into the hut, and looked hurriedly round for something to wear in place of her riding-skirt. She only saw a couple of light print dresses. She stepped into a skillion room, which happened to be Bob’s room, and there caught sight of a pair of trousers and a coat hanging on the wall.
Bob Ross, beating desperately along a line of fire that curved down-hill to his right, and half-choked and blinded with the smoke, almost stumbled against a figure which was too tall to be his father.
“Why! who’s that?” he gasped.
“It’s only me, Bob,” said Mary, and she lifted her bough again.
Bob stared. He was so astonished that he almost forgot the fire and the wheat. Bob was not thin–but–
“Don’t look at me, Bob!” said Mary, hurriedly. “We’re going to be married, so it doesn’t matter. Let us save the wheat.”
There was no time to waste; there was a breeze now from over the ridges, light, but enough to bear the fire down on them. Once, when they had breathing space, Mary ran to the creek for a billy of water. They beat out the fire all along the siding to where a rib of granite came down over the ridge to the fence, and then they thought the wheat was safe. They came together here, and Ross had time to look and see who the strange man was; then he stared at Mary from under his black, bushy eyebrows. Mary, choking and getting her breath after her exertions, suddenly became aware, said “Oh!” and fled round the track beyond the point of granite. She felt a gust of wind and looked up the ridge. The bush fence ended here in a corner, where it was met by a new wire fence running up from the creek. It was a blind gully full of tall dead grass, and, glancing up, Mary saw the flames coming down fast. She ran back.
“Come on!” she cried, “come on! The fire’s the other side of the rocks!”
Back at the station, Wall walked up and down till he cooled. He went inside and sat down, but it was no use. He lifted his head and saw his dead wife’s portrait on the wall. Perhaps his whole life ran before him in detail–but this is not a psychological study.
There were only two tracks open to him now: either to give in, or go on as he was going–to shut himself out from human nature and become known as “Mean Wall,” “Hungry Wall,” or “Mad Wall, the Squatter.” He was a tall, dark man of strong imagination and more than ordinary intelligence. And it was the great crisis of his ruined life. He walked to the top of a knoll near the homestead and saw the fire on the ridges above Ross’s farm. As he turned back he saw a horseman ride up and dismount by the yard.