72 Next to the Ground 



its appointed work, of making the sappy green 

 things sere and brown, fire came in to the help 

 of the tangled ground. 



The line fence had been pulled down, its 

 sound rails taken away, its rotten ones cast 

 where they would help feed the fire. Then 

 for almost a day Slow Pete and the cross- 

 matched team ran furrows round about the 

 tangle's other boundaries. Half an hour by 

 sun, the plough stopped. The sky was faintly 

 overcast, and the wind sitting due south, 

 freshened so fast as to hint of rain. The 

 ground was dry and warm — powder-dry in 

 spots. The leafy bushes, the sedge, the dead 

 weeds, were as quick as tinder. They were so 

 dry, indeed, Major Baker thought it safest to 

 fire the field first against the wind — that is, 

 along the north end before setting it along the 

 south. 



Eating its way thus against the wind, he 

 knew the flame would be less likely to leap 

 the barrier of fresh earth. If once it did whip 

 across, it might creep into the flat-woods, and 

 that would mean a running fight several miles 

 long. He hated to see woods burned over, 

 no matter who owned them ; it hurt the tim- 

 ber so, and never helped anything, to say noth- 

 ing of destroying the mast, and killing thrifty 

 saplings. There might have been reason for 

 it, in pioneer days, when there was no open 



