By Right of Purchase by Harold Bindloss — Read

There was silence for a minute, the tense silence that precedes a struggle, when the waggon lurched away, and the men stood still, intent and at a strain, blinking at the fire. The wind had lulled, and the smoke went almost straight up, shining luminously in the red glare. Beneath it, a wavy line of flame rolled on across the prairie, licking up the parched grass as it came. As it happened, the grass thereabouts was higher than usual. Unless there is a gale behind it, a grass-fire does not move with much celerity, and that night the one that menaced Leland's crop seemed inordinately slow to those who watched it. Indeed, one or two of them found it strangely hard to stand still while it rolled down on them, which, in cases of the kind, is by no means an unusual thing. Action of any kind, even purposeless action, is a relief to men under strain.

There was, however, in the meanwhile, nothing that they could do, and they commenced to growl inarticulately as they glanced at one another with fierce, set faces. Here and there one of them twisted the end of the wet bag he held, to give him a firmer grip, or fidgeted aimlessly with his shovel. The rest frowned and coughed, for which there was some excuse, or stood woodenly still, according to their temperament. Leland, however, swung round towards the row of binders that stood half buried among the oats.