Indian sketches, taken during an expedition to the Pawnee tribes (Vol. 2 of 2)

by John Treat Irving

Several hours had passed in this way. I had strayed many miles through the bottom, when the height of the sun warned me that it was near mid-day, and time to think of rejoining my companions.

Leaving the woods I took to the prairie, and sought the trail of the party, and for several hours pursued my course, examining every hill and hollow, in hopes of finding it; but no trail could I see. As the day waned, I increased my speed; but still without success. The prairie was deserted. The long grass waved before the blast but not a living thing met my eye. I then feared that I might have crossed the trace without noticing it; but the more I thought of it, the more impossible did it seem, that the heavy track of so numerous a body of men, should have escaped my eye. I ascended a ridge which commanded a wide prospect. A wilderness of grass was before me, with small rolling hills extending in every direction; but there was no appearance of my companions; nothing to be seen, but the sky and the prairie. It was time to seek a resting place for the night. I looked round for some tree, but not one was in sight. Dead grass, wild weeds, and withered stalks, were the only covering of the hills. I was like a mariner alone in the midst of an ocean. I knew not which way to turn. If I travelled to the west I might be approaching my companions, or I might be going from them; and then too, I would be journeying away from the settlements. So I at length determined to take an easterly course, until I reached the Missouri, which I intended should be my guide to the abodes of the whites.

With a quick pace I pressed forward, anxious to find a sheltering place for the night. It was the end of October; the wind was chilling, and I was clad in a dress of drilling, such as is used only for summer wear. Just as the sun was sinking, I caught sight of a line of forest, at many miles’ distance. This acted like a spur upon a jaded horse. With fresh spirits I bounded down the sides of the prairie swells, and forced my way through the tall, clogging grass. But at last the sun set, and as the twilight darkened, objects grew indistinct, and the forest which could not have been more than two miles off, was gradually lost in the obscurity. In front of me was a large hill; I ascended it, to wait on its summit until the moon rose; for I feared to lose my course in the darkness.

A feeling of very desolation came over me, as I sat there, with nothing but the dreary waste around me, and the blue, cold sky twinkling with stars, above. The wind had increased to a gale, and swept howling along, occasionally bearing with it the yell of some prowling wolf. For hours I sat shivering, with my eyes fixed upon the eastern horizon, watching eagerly for the moon; and never had I greeted her appearance, with such heartfelt pleasure, as when she emerged to view.

I resumed my journey, and after toiling for an hour, through a wide bottom of tall weeds and matted grass, I reached the grove—erected a small shed of boughs after the manner of the Indians, and lying down was soon asleep, before a huge fire, which I built against the trunk of a fallen tree.

I was awakened by the increasing violence of the gale. At times it sank into low wailings, and then would swell again, howling and whistling through the trees. After sitting by the fire for a short time, I again threw myself upon my pallet of dried grass, but could not sleep. There was something dismal and thrilling in the sound of the wind. At times, wild voices seemed shrieking through the woodland. It was in vain that I closed my eyes; a kind of superstitious feeling came over me, and though I saw nothing, my ears drank in every sound. I gazed around in every direction, and sat with my hand on my gun-trigger, for my feelings were so wrought up, that I momentarily expected to see an armed Indian start from behind each bush. At last I rose up, and sat by the fire. Suddenly, a swift gust swept through the grove, and whirled off sparks and cinders in every direction. In an instant, fifty little fires, shot their forked tongues in the air, and seemed to flicker with a momentary struggle for existence. There was scarcely time to note their birth, before they were creeping up in a tall, tapering blaze and leaping lightly along the tops of the scattering clumps of dry grass. In another moment they leaped forward into the prairie, and a waving line of brilliant flame, quivered high up in the dark atmosphere.

Another gust came rushing along the ravine. It was announced by a distant moan; as it came nearer a cloud of dry leaves filled the air; the slender shrubs and saplings bent like weeds—dry branches snapped and crackled. The lofty forest trees writhed, and creaked, and groaned. The next instant the furious blast reached the flaming prairie. Myriads and myriads of bright embers were flung wildly up in the air: flakes of blazing grass, whirled like meteors through the sky. The flame spread into a vast sheet, that swept over the prairie, bending forward, illumining the black waste which it had passed, and shedding a red light far down the deep vistas of the forest; though all beyond the blaze was of a pitchy blackness. The roaring flames, drowned even the howling of the wind. At each succeeding blast, they threw long pyramidal streams upwards in the black sky, then flared horizontally, and seemed to bound forward, lighting at each bound, a new conflagration. Leap succeeded leap; the flames rushed onward with a race-horse speed. The noise sounded like the roar of a stormy ocean, and the wild, tumultuous billows of flame, were tossed about like a sea of fire. Directly in their course, and some distance out in the prairie, stood a large grove of oaks—the dry leaves still clinging to the branches. There was a red glare thrown upon them, from the blazing flood. A moment passed, and a black smoke oozed from the nearest tree—the blaze roared among their branches, and shot up for a hundred feet in the air—waving as if in triumph. The effect was transient. In a moment had the fire swept through a grove covering several acres. It sank again into the prairie, leaving the limbs of every tree scathed and scorched to an inky blackness; and shining with a bright crimson light, between their branches. In this way the light conflagration swept over the landscape: every hill seemed to burn its own funeral pyre, and the scorching heat licked up every blade in the hollows. A dark cloud of gray smoke, filled with burning embers, spread over the course of the flames, occasionally forming not ungraceful columns, which were almost instantly shattered by the wind, and driven in a thousand different directions.

For several hours the blaze continued to rage, and the whole horizon became girdled with a belt of living fire. As the circle extended, the flames appeared smaller and smaller: until they looked like a slight golden thread drawn around the hills. They then must have been nearly ten miles distant. At length the blaze disappeared, although the purple light, that for hours illumined the night sky, told that the element was extending into other regions of the prairies.

It was sunrise when I rose from my resting place and resumed my journey. What a change! All was waste. The sun had set upon a prairie still clothed in its natural garb of herbage. It rose upon a scene of desolation. Not a single weed—not a blade of grass, was left. The tall grove, which at sunset was covered with withered foliage, now spread a labyrinth of scorched and naked branches—the very type of ruin. A thin covering of gray ashes was sprinkled upon the ground beneath, and several large, dead trees, whose dried branches had caught and nourished the flame, were still blazing or sending up long spires of smoke. In every direction, barrenness marked the track of the flames. It had even worked its course against the blast, hugging to the roots of the tall grass.