"Watch that nothing catches fire in the wagon, Hannah," shouted Joshua Peniman, bending forward and laying the whip across the backs of the petted team that had scarcely ever felt a blow in their lives before. "Watch the children's clothing. Have wet cloths handy!"
The wind, a gale before, now seemed to have increased in fury, and before it the fire leaped and roared like a furnace.
"Faster, Joe, faster!" yelled his father; "it's gaining on us, we've got to reach a stream or draw of some kind——"
Leaning far forward on his seat with the whip in his hand and the reins clutched hard, Joe did not wait for the finish of the sentence. With voice and whip and lines he urged the horses forward, shouting at them, shaking the lines over their straining backs, whirling the whip about their heads, as in a blinding reek of smoke and dust they thundered on, while closer and closer behind them came the roaring flames.
The horses were soon panting and lathered with sweat, staggering and stumbling under the strain of the heavy wagons, and poor Cherry, fastened on behind, was almost pulled off her feet, and slid and stumbled bawling wildly.
The whole sky was illuminated now, and the air so filled with smoke that they could hardly breathe. Behind them the ominous crackling and snapping of dry grass grew louder and louder, as the fire, fanned by the high wind, rushed through the tall, dry prairie grass with the velocity of a cyclone.
All at once without decreasing the pace of his horses, Mr. Peniman stood up in the wagon and looked back.
They heard him utter a sharp, inarticulate sound, and the horses were stopped with a jerk that almost threw them upon their haunches.
"No use," he shouted, leaping out, "we can never make it! Got to fight it out here! Out everybody, and fight for your lives!"
Joe and Lige stopped their teams, and drawing the wagons up together they leaped out and tied their teams to the rings in the side of the other wagon.