CHAPTER XVII.
A PRAIRIE ON FIRE—SCENES OF TERROR.
In October, we were overtaken by a prairie fire. At this season of the year the plants and grass, parched by a hot sun, are ready to blaze in a moment if ignited by the least spark, which is often borne on the wind from some of the many camp fires.
With frightful rapidity we saw it extend in all directions, but we were allowed time to escape.
The Indians ran like wild animals from the flames, uttering yells like demons; and great walls of fire from the right hand and from the left advanced toward us, hissing, crackling, and threatening to unite and swallow us up in their raging fury.
We were amid calcined trees, which fell with a thundering crash, blinding us with clouds of smoke, and were burned by the showers of sparks, which poured upon us from all directions.
The conflagration assumed formidable proportions; the forest shrunk up in the terrible grasp of the flames, and the prairie presented one sheet of fire, in the midst of which the wild animals, driven from their dens and hiding-places by this unexpected catastrophe, ran about mad with terror.
The sky gleamed with blood-red reflection; and the impetuous wind swept both flames and smoke before it.
The Indians were terrified in the extreme on seeing around them the mountain heights lighted up like beacons; to show the entire destruction. The earth became hot, while immense troops of buffalo made the ground tremble with their furious tread, and their bellowings of despair would fill with terror the hearts of the bravest men.