The fire could not have been more than three miles distant, when the space cleared was as wide as Mr. Hardy deemed necessary for safety. A regular noise, something between a hiss and a roar, was plainly audible; and when the wind lifted the smoke, the flames could be seen running along in an unbroken wall of fire. Birds flew past over head with terrified cries, and a close, hot smell of burning was very plainly distinguishable.
Starting about half way along the side of the cleared piece of ground, Mr. Hardy set the dry grass alight. For a moment or two it burned slowly, and then, fanned by the wind, it gained force, and spread in a semicircle of flame.
The horses were already unpicketed, and half of the party held them at a short distance in the rear, while the rest stood in readiness to extinguish the fire if it crossed the cleared space.
Over and over again the fire crept partially across,—for the clearing had been done but roughly,—but it was speedily stamped out by the heavy boots of the watchers.
The spectacle, as the fire swept away before the wind, was fine in the extreme. The party seemed enclosed between two walls of fire. The main conflagration was now fearfully close, burning flakes were already falling amongst them, and the sound of the fire was like the hiss of the surf upon a pebbly beach.
‘Now,’ Mr. Hardy said, ‘forward with the horses. Every one to his own animal. Put your ponchos over your own heads as well as your horses’.’
In another minute the party stood clustered upon the black and smoking ground which the fire they had kindled had swept clear. There, for five minutes, they remained without moving, unscorched by the raging element around them, but half-choked with the smoke.
Then Mr. Hardy spoke: ‘It is over now. You can look up.’
There was a general expression of astonishment as the heads emerged from their wrappers, and the eyes recovered sufficiently from the effects of the blinding smoke to look round. Where had the fire gone? Where, indeed! The main conflagration had swept by them, had divided in two when it reached the ground already burnt, and these columns, growing farther and farther asunder as the newly-kindled fire had widened, were already far away to the right and left, while beyond and between them was the fire that they themselves had kindled, now two miles wide, and already far in the distance.
These fires in the Pampas, although they frequently extend over a vast tract of country, are seldom fatal to life. The grass rarely attains a height exceeding three feet, and burns out almost like so much cotton. A man on horseback, having no other method of escape, can, by blindfolding his horse and wrapping his own face in a poncho, ride fearlessly through the wall of fire without damage to horse or rider.