Ollie was looking at the grass and weeds growing on the top
and sides of the house. They must have made a pretty sight when
they were green and thrifty earlier in the season, but they were
dry and withered now.

"Do you ever have prairie-fires on your roofs?" asked Ollie,
with a smile.

"Oh, they do burn off sometimes," answered the man. "Catch
from the chimney, you know. Did you ever see a hay fire?"

"No."

"Come inside and I'll show you one."

In the house, which consisted of one large room divided
across one end by a curtain, Ollie noticed a few chairs and a
table, and opposite the door a stove which looked very much like
an ordinary cook-stove, except that the place for the fire was
rather larger. Back of it stood a box full of what seemed to be
big hay rope. The man's wife was cooking dinner on the stove.

"Here's a young tenderfoot," said the man, "who's never seen
a hay fire."

"Wish I never had," answered the woman. The man laughed.
"They're hardly as good as a wood fire or a coal fire," he said
to Ollie; "but when you're five hundred miles, more or less, from
either wood or coal they do very well." The man took off one of