Now they all agreed, "Yes, Doby," and nodded. Their eyes were on the horizon.
It was near the end of a hot day in July and quite time to go into camp for the night.
The marsh-grass bottoms of a network of creeks had so withered in a long "dry spell," that their green plants had become like tinder. The emigrants were afraid to stop or to make supper fires in such a dangerous spot.
One spark might set the whole wide bottom ablaze.
No wonder then that they moved along as rapidly as they could and gazed at one another in quick alarm at the coming of an acrid current of air.
While they debated what to do the breeze increased. Smoke-clouds tumbled in the northwest. A droning like the hum of distant bees came to their ears.
"Doby, help the men to start fires to the south of us in the path of the wind," cried his father, as part of the folks of the train ran forward to light the grass. The only defense they could muster was their plan to fight fire with fire.
It flamed up. The wicked little tongues noisily licked the ground brown and bare as the now strong wind blew the flames away from the wagons.
Other men were violently busy trying to hurry on to this barren ground the oxen who pulled the wagons, and the horses and cows which followed them.
The ashes were hot to their feet, stifling to their nostrils. The utmost urging was necessary to force them over the burned acres.