Since the great snow of 1830 but few buffaloes had been seen on the prairie. But a dark cloud of flesh came bounding over the prairie grass, bellowing, with low heads and erect tails. The children thought that they were cattle at first, but they were buffaloes. They rushed toward the trees of Prairie Island, turned, and looked behind. Then the leader pawed the earth, and the herd rushed on toward the north.
The fire spread in a semicircle, and seemed to create a wind which impelled it on with resistless fury.
"O-o-oh, look! look!" exclaimed another scholar. "See the horses and the cattle—droves of them! Look at the sky—see the birds!"
There were droves of cattle hurrying in every direction. The men in the fields near Prairie Island came hurrying home.
"The prairie is on fire!" said each one, not knowing what else to say.
"Will it reach us?" asked Jasper of the harvesters.
"What is to hinder it? The wind is driving it this way. It has formed a wall of fire that almost surrounds us."
"What can we do?" asked Jasper. The harvesters considered.
"We are safer here than elsewhere, let what will come," said one. "If the fire sweeps the prairie, it would overtake us before we could get to any great river, and the small creeks are dry."
The afternoon grew darker and darker. The sun went out; under the black smoke rolled a red sea whose waves grew nearer and nearer. The children began to cry and the women to pray. An old man came hobbling out to the arch of the trees.