Free Riding Camp by Bonnie Bryant Page A

games, the ghost stories around the camp fire. She was listening to more ghost stories around the camp fire. She could almost smell the pungent smoke. It tickled her nostrils and irritated her eyes. She was roasting marshmallows. But there was no smell of marshmallows. There was just the smell of smoke.
    Lisa sat upright in bed. There was
still
a smell of smoke. “Fire!” she whispered, almost too frightened to say it out loud.
    “Hmph,” rumbled one of her sleeping cabin mates.
    She sniffed again. There was no doubt about it. Something was burning and Lisa had the awful feeling it wasn’t a camp fire. She hopped out of her bed andran to the window. She could see the barn at the top of the hill. A flicker of orange was coming from the hayloft.
    “FIRE!”
Lisa yelled. Everybody was awake at once.
    The girls didn’t wait to dress. They ran out of their cabin, screaming out the frightening word
fire
as they rushed through the cabin area. Other campers quickly joined them.
    Lisa raced up the hill, Carole and Stevie beside her.
    “It’s the hay,” Lisa said. “I know it’s the hay! All that moldy hay, and Fred left it in the barn. It started a fire!”
    “Come on,” Carole urged. “Right now, that’s not important. Someone’s told Barry. He’ll call the Fire Department and they’ll take care of the barn. We’ve got to help the horses!”
    The Saddle Club knew they only had a few minutes and every second could mean a horse’s life! Barns were filled with things that burned well. Hay, grain, straw, dry wood—all of it would fuel the fire, and within a short time the whole thing could just about explode.
    Carole pointed to the upper paddock on the far side of the barn, where the horses were beginning to panic. The horses clustered near the barn, as if they were looking for the safety of a familiar shelter. They shifted and pranced, nudging and frightening one another. Their ears were pinned back in fear and tension, theireyes were opened wide, showing white all around. The horses were in terrible danger and every instinct they had was putting them at greater risk.
    “Get them away from the barn!” Carole cried. “It could collapse on them!”
    Lisa saw at once that she was right. If the animals could be moved to the other end of the large paddock and kept there, they’d be safe no matter what happened to the barn. Cooped in the paddock next to the barn, they only terrified one another, endangering themselves even more. But what could the girls do?
    “The hilltop!” Lisa cried to Carole. “If we can get them on the other side of the hill, they won’t see the fire, and maybe they’ll stay away.”
    Carole nodded. There wasn’t a second to spare on conversation. She barked orders at everybody nearby, and everybody began following them.
    “Lisa, Debbie! Climb the fence on our side—don’t go inside, the horses could crush you—and try shooing them away from the barn. Jack, Nora, Elsa, go get cavalettis, jumps, barrels, anything you can think of to create a makeshift fence to restrain the horses in the far end of the paddock. You four, bring water, hay, grain, anything you can lay your hands on, to give the horses when they get there. We’ll need a big welcoming committee to make them feel at home. Seth, you help Lisa and Debbie. Use your shirt to wave at them ifyou want. Anything to get them to move, because I’ve got the feeling that wall’s going to collapse. And when it does, the horses aren’t the only ones who will have to be out of its way!”
    Lisa looked over her shoulder at the barn. The long upright slats of wood were glowing red with the heat and licking flames were visible behind them. The hay in the loft was burning so fast that the entire barn could be gone in just a few minutes. She began waving her arms at the frightened horses, just as Carole had told her. It was hard to imagine that this frantic herd of horses, prancing, jumping, and whinnying with fear, were the same horses who