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Half an hour later the flowering trees of Maraisfontein were behind us, while in front rolled the fire-swept veld, black as life had become for me. A fortnight later Marais, Pereira and their companions, a little band in all of about twenty men, thirty women and children, and say fifty half-breeds and Hottentot after-riders, trekked from their homes into the wilderness.
The "why" of this compared to the fire-swept regions of Idaho is simply a matter of trails. The rangers have cut five or six hundred miles of trails all through the Pecos, along which they can spur at breakneck speed to put out fires.
So presently both fathers and mothers were on their way to the forest. When they came to the outlying stock farms they met some of their neighbours. "Are you going to the fire-swept mountain?" they asked. "That's where we're bound for." "To have a look at the children?" "Yes, to see what they're up to." "It's only play, of course."
Charred stumps, standing sentinel-like between the rock ledges, bore witness that once there had been a fine forest here; but no fresh roots sprang from the ground. One day in the early summer all the children in the parish had assembled in front of the schoolhouse near the fire-swept mountain. Each child carried either a spade or a hoe on its shoulder, and a basket of food in its hand.
As the sun neared the western horizon, it fired the sky above them, and all the distant hills and prairies were in the glow of it, but immediately about them was a thick cloud of dust, and the ground appeared like a fire-swept plain. Suddenly Antoine was aware of a tremendous push from behind. The animals smelled the cool water of a spring which formed a large bog in the midst of the plain.
"It's the Bull!" cried A'tim triumphantly. "Now, Brothers, we shall feast. Have I not spoken the truth?" On again sped the four Killers the four that were eager of blood; on through the thicket, and with suddenness out upon a plain that had been fire-swept years before a plain wide, and void of poplar, or spruce, or cottonwood.
We counted six islands in addition to the one we were already on, and we observed that the one to the eastward of us was, like our own, fire-swept; also that at one point it was separated from our island by a channel only about half a mile wide.
The city swarmed across the water to witness the ceremony of evacuation. Wherry men did a thriving business carrying passengers to the fort. Anderson withdrew from Sumter shortly after two o'clock amid a salute of fifty guns. The Confederates took possession. At half after four a new flag was raised above the battered and fire-swept walls.
The question came to her suddenly as if someone else had asked it. She thought of the shambles of the Flanders front she thought of her brother and her playmate helping to hold those fire-swept trenches. What would they think of her if she shirked her little duty here the humble duty of carrying the programme through for her Red Cross?
Havildar Ali Gul, of the Afridi Company of the Guides, seized a canvas cartridge carrier, a sort of loose jacket with large pockets, filled it with ammunition from his men's pouches, and rushing across the fire-swept space, which separated the regiment from the Sikhs, distributed the precious packets to the struggling men. Returning he carried a wounded native officer on his back.
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