The biography of a prairie girl

Larry Johnson rushed toward his friend's twisted body, the terrified screams of the crowd and the wail of the fire siren echoing in his ears. "Verne! Verne!" he shouted, kneeling beside the sprawled out body. But the stunt rider was unconscious, and in the next minute his inert body was being lifted into a shrieking ambulance which raced toward the nearest hospital. CHAPTER ONE Dusk had just fallen, and in the last crimson-gold rays of the setting sun, the row of identical pastel ranch houses which jutted up from the flat Indiana prairie seemed to be bursting into flames. In spite of the rosy glow, the air grew chill, almost forbidding, as the thin September sun sank beyond the horizon. High above the level plain a clamorous flock of blackbirds hovered for an instant in the darkening sky, then suddenly turned and vanished toward the south. "Winter's coming at last…" the slender blonde girl murmured to herself, shivering and drawing her lightweight red cardigan tightly around her scantily clad body as a chill breeze rustled through the meadow ...»