CHAPTER XXI
JACK'S CLOSE CALL
On the plains a prairie fire is always something to be dreaded, for with the usual breeze, which often amounts to a gale, a fire in heavy, dry grass is almost invariably uncontrollable and a source of terror to the luckless traveller who happens to be in its track.
Such a fire originates most commonly from the embers of a camp-fire—left by some careless or inexperienced traveller—blown by a rising wind out into the adjacent dry grass or, in the spring of the year, by fires purposely set out in the old grass by the Indians to clear the ground for the next crop.
An essay might be written on prairie fires and the dangers from them and on the best means of fighting them. I have now only to tell of how one of us was caught in one.
For the next few days after Wild Bill and Captain Saunders had left us we were all busy taking in wolf pelts. The season was fast passing, and we yet lacked several hundred skins of the three thousand that we had declared that we would gather before quitting.
One cold, windy day, when a gale was blowing from the northwest, Jack started out alone and afoot—he said it was too cold and windy to ride—to kill a few buffalo wolf baits.
Crossing the creek below the beaver dam, to look for buffalo in the prairie beyond, he soon passed out of sight, while Tom and I busied ourselves taking up the dried skins and baling them. We heard the report of Jack's carbine occasionally and knew by the direction of the sounds that he was to windward of camp—about northwest.
After Jack had been out for some time Tom took the field-glass and went up onto the bluff south of our camp, from which he could view the prairie north of the creek.