“Fight it! fight it! and die for the ground!” he exclaimed, snatching the hunting-shirt from off his head, and beating out the fire where it came nearest. “Whip it—whip it—thrash it—out with it” he shouted, as he rushed recklessly into the danger, burning his hands, with his hair and whiskers curling and scorching, as he gave the command.
“Thar, that will do,” he continued, seeing that the danger had passed, and the fire had swept by, leaving a black, smoky belt of earth behind. “And now, boys, as you never saw a perarer fire before, look! It ain’t every day you’ll see such a sight, I can tell you.”
Though his words were rude, they were simply true! Words are powerless to describe a broad prairie conflagration, and the brush of the most gifted artist would fail to paint a tithe of its dazzling beauty.
See, where it begins, when either purpose or chance has dropped a tiny spark into the dry herbage. A little curl of smoke, a tiny flame struggles for a moment for life. The slightest breath of air falls upon it—a gleam, scarcely larger than a fire-fly among the tangled leaves, and in an instant a lurid flame leaps forth—is kindled into a furnace-like glare, and directly a wandering hill of flame is sweeping resistlessly over the prairie. The harvest was ready for the flame-sickle—the sapless and withered stalks were waiting the reaping. Spreading like a circle in the tideless lake, the fire knows no bounds, save when exhausted for want of fuel, it turns back on itself and dies.
See, with bounds swift and longer than an antelope ever compassed, it o’ertops the tallest leaves—runs stealthily along like a golden serpent, darting spitefully its forked tongue of living flame on every side, while crackling, hissing, roaring, its terrible writhings uncoil. In waves of living fire, flashing from a background of dense inky smoke, it rushes on, regardless of barriers, and scornful of bounds, a winged maelstrom of devastation.
CHAPTER IX.
TRUE HEART.
The band of Indians having Esther Morse in charge, led by the treacherous Black Eagle, belonged to that portion of the Dacotahs or Sioux, usually known among border men as gens du large, to distinguish them from the gens du lac, who lived in villages on the borders of Spirit Lake, and kept themselves aloof, in a very great degree, from both plunder and murder. Scarcely divining the object of their leader in conducting them through the rocky mountain passes, while another portion had been sent off to attack the train of the white men, and totally ignorant of his plans, they yet followed blindly on, believing that the end would compensate them for their toil.
It was upon the very crest of a rocky spur of the mountain that he had raised the war-cry of the tribe, intending only that it should lure the Mormon still deeper into the fastnesses, and so place him completely at his mercy, either for the disgorgement of hoarded gold, or it might be for total robbery. Very much to his surprise, a single clear, ringing voice, powerful as a trumpet, answered from a still higher point, and a single horseman was seen picking his way down the steep mountain side, holding every movement clearly within the range of his vision.
It was not wonderful that an object like this, appearing suddenly in that lonesome place, should startle the superstitious men who composed Black Eagle’s band. For an instant they huddled close together, watching the horseman with a wild look of terror, thinking him the Manitou of the mountain, or some messenger sent from the Walham Tanka, or Great Spirit that dwells on high, who smiles in the sunshine, or frowns in the thunder-cloud, whispers in the morning wind, or rolls his anger over the earth in the rushing tornado.
Esther Morse watched the horseman with suspended breath, as he rode along the verge of the beetling cliff. To her vivid imagination, he seemed more like a warrior of the air, descending from the fleecy clouds, than a mortal being. Then, as he descended toward them, and became more distinctly visible, her fancy returned to earth, and she could but regard him as a knight of romance coming to her rescue, with eagle plumes, tinged with sunlight, his shield shaped with golden bars.