The people heard it with terror, and yet with hope. It might be an approaching shower. If it were, they were saved.
The fire in front of them was checked. Not the great sea, but the current that was rolling toward the island grove. The fire at the north was rushing forward, but it moved backward toward the place slowly. The women began to soak blankets and clothing in water, and so prepared to help the men fight the flames. An hour passed. In the midst of the crisis the riding men, the hurrying women, the encircling fire, the billows of smoke, a flame came zigzagging down from the sky. The people stood still. Had the last day indeed come?
Then followed a crash of thunder that shook the earth. The people fell upon their knees. The sky darkened, and great drops of rain began to fall.
Waubeno had checked the current of the flame that would have destroyed the settlement in an hour, and had taught the men how to arrest an advancing tide of flame. The people began to have hope. All was now activity on the part of the people. Smoke filled the sky.
"There is a cloud above the smoke," said many. "God will save us all."
Waubeno came flying back again to the grove.
"It thunders," he cried. "The Rain-god is coming. If I can keep back the fire an hour, the Rain-god will come. Hides! hides! Quick, more hides! Ho! ho!"
New hides were provided, and he swept forth again.
The island grove was now like a vast oven. The air was stifling. The animals laid down and rolled their tongues from their mouths. But the fire in front did not advance. It seemed deadened. The river of flame forked and ran in other directions, but it was stayed in front of the grove, houses, corn-fields, and stacks, and it was the hand that had set flames that had broken its force in the road to the settlements.
There were sudden dashes of rain, and the smoke turned into blackness everywhere. Another flash of lightning smote the gloom, followed by a rattling of thunder that seemed as if the spirit of the storm was driving his chariot through the air. Then it poured as though a lake was coming down. In an hour the fire was dead. The cloud parted, the slanting sun came out, revealing a prairie as black as ink.