“Wait, my friend—wait. I have not begun to tell you the full extent of my horrible dilemma. Once or twice I fancied I smelled something like smoke, but I paid no heed to this until a sort of dull reddish glow penetrated that mass of flying insects. Finally, looking back, I perceived behind me, spreading out on both sides, a gleam like fire. It was fire. The dry prairie grass was burning, and the wind was sweeping the flames down on me with the speed of an express train. In a measure that accounted for the tremendous number of grasshoppers now swarming about me and beating against me in their flight. They were being driven ahead of the flames, and as the fire advanced their numbers became greater and greater, until I could scarcely breathe without my nostrils being plugged by grasshoppers.”
“Horrible!” snickered Cooper.
“It was horrible,” said Grant solemnly. “When I realized my peril from that onrushing conflagration I put spurs to my horse in a hopeless effort to keep ahead of it. It was like galloping through the darkness of night. The beating and rustling of grasshoppers’ wings, which had sounded faint at first, had gradually risen until it was like the roaring of a gale. The pressure of insects against my back helped in a measure to carry me onward. Finally, however, my horse plunged into a gopher hole and broke its leg. Poor beast!
“But think of me, gents—think of me some! There I was dismounted in the path of that fearful prairie fire. Desperately I succeeded in rising, and madly I stumbled on knee deep amid squirming grasshoppers. The gloom was penetrated in a way by the light of the flames, and I could feel the scorching heat upon the back of my neck. Suddenly right ahead of me I beheld a deep fissure in the plain. The bottom of the fissure was packed with layers of grasshoppers many feet in depth. For a moment I hesitated, and then, as the fire rushed upon me, I launched myself in a desperate spring for the opposite side of the fissure.
“At that very moment, apparently aroused, despite their weariness, by the close approach and searing heat of the flames, the grasshoppers in that gully rose in a solid mass. They actually lifted me and bore me upward for a few moments. True, I was nearer smothered than ever before in all my life. Like a drowning person, I sought to rise higher by paddling with my hands and treading with my feet.
“I rose, gents—I sure did. I kept on rising, too, until I opined I was, pretty near the top of that tremendous mass of grasshoppers, which was sweeping along the surface of the earth ahead of the fire. I soon discovered that by paddling gently with feet and hands I could keep myself up, and to my unbounded relief I perceived that the flying grasshoppers were bearing me along with such speed that the flames could not gain upon me.
“I don’t know just how long I was in the air, but I do know that at least twenty good miles of Texas territory was passed over before that mass of flying grasshoppers became so thinned that I finally sank slowly and gently, like a feather, to the ground. Believe it or not, I landed on the south side of the Canadian River, and thus my life was saved; for when the flames reached the river they could go no farther.
“That, gents, is, I reckon, beyond the shadow of dispute, the longest jump on record. If any one has ever beaten it, I’d like to meet up with the party and yield him the palm.”
The bell clanged; intermission was over.
“Oh, suffering misery!” groaned Chipper Cooper, staggering toward the academy door. “Somebody support me. I’m weak and exhausted. That’s what I call a real w-hopper!”