THE PRAIRIE FIRE
A few days later the travelers drove into a dreary, straggling little settlement of a few log and sod shanties on a little stream called Salt Creek. Here they spent the night, glad of the company of other white settlers. There was a general store in the little settlement, at which Joshua Peniman bought a barrel of salt pork, a barrel of flour, sugar, coffee, rice, tea, beans, dried peas, and a bucket of lard and a firkin of butter.
"I am doubtful," he said as he loaded them into his wagon, "whether we will come to another place where we could get supplies."
Early the next morning they loaded up their wagons, bade farewell to the other movers, and struck off across the trackless prairies.
It was still early, and the drum of the prairie-chickens came to their ears across the silence of the plains. Joe and Lige took their guns and went in search of them, and soon returned with a couple of fine young hens, which Mrs. Peniman cooked for their dinner.
A strong, hot south wind was blowing, which toward evening increased to a gale. Even the shadows of night did not bring relief from the heat, which seemed to increase rather than diminish. Mrs. Peniman could not sleep. With a feeling of suffocation and uneasiness upon her she tossed from side to side. The air was hot and close, and in her nostrils there was a pungent smell. With the instinct of danger strong upon her she sprang up, and jumping out of the wagon looked about her.
Off to the south the sky was red, and straining her eyes through the darkness she saw, low against the horizon, a leaping tongue of flame.
She ran to where her husband lay sleeping. "Joshua," she whispered, laying her hand on his arm, "Joshua, wake up! I smell smoke, and away over yonder I think I see a fire——"
"Fire!" the sleeping man was wide awake and on his feet in a moment. "Fire? Where?"
Mrs. Peniman pointed.