Dropping his sack Joe ran to the heads of one, Lige to the other, while Mr. Peniman dashed to the heads of the third team.
"To the wagons, to the wagons!" he shouted, and saw his wife and the other children drop their sacks and dash for the wagons as the quaking of the ground and a great roar like that of an approaching cyclone rose above the crackling of the flames.
"What is it? What is it?" shouted Joe, terror-stricken.
"Buffaloes!" yelled his father. "Stampeded by the fire! Get your guns—fire into them as they come—please God our back-fire may keep us from being trampled by them!"
There was a moment of awful suspense, while the ground beneath their feet seemed to rock and tremble with the impact of the wildly charging herd. Through the smoke and dust they could make out a great mass of enormous reddish-brown bodies being hurled madly forward before the pursuing flames. Then the terrified creatures made a wide circle to avoid the black ring of burned ground, which they seemed to fear, and the herd of buffaloes, grim, monstrous shapes in the dusk of early morning, thundered by and passed out of sight.
When the circle of back-fire was completed the nearly exhausted family leaned for a moment on their wet brooms to breathe. The last of the water in the kegs went to wet blankets and tarpaulins to spread over the canvas covers of the wagons, and as the flames swept toward them they took their stand about the wagons, still armed with their wet brooms and sacks, to make a last struggle against the fire that came crackling and rushing toward them.
CHAPTER XII
A NEBRASKA DUGOUT
With the roar of a tornado the prairie fire swept down upon them.
The high grass, dry as tinder after the long hot spell, burned as if covered with turpentine.