The fire kept up such a roaring and rushing noise that I began to fear that the wind might carry some of it across the creek, but as soon as it entered the timber on the north side, where the grass was shorter, a marked subsidence was apparent.
I mounted and moved up to the south bank of the creek, anxious to be off on my search for Jack, but a dense cloud of smoke and flying ashes whirled through the trees from the burnt ground for some minutes after the fire seemed to have exhausted its fury, and, impatient as I was, I yet had to wait before venturing to enter the burnt district. As soon as I could endure it I crossed the creek and started, still half blinded and choked by the flying smoke and ashes, which so obscured my vision that I could see but a short distance ahead. The fire now was all gone except here and there a few buffalo-chips still burning, but the hot smoke-and-ashes-laden air was stifling.
I struck a gallop, to hurry through the worst part of the ground, and soon began to get out into a little clearer atmosphere, and was greatly rejoiced to see Jack coming toward me though yet some distance off. I noticed that though he was coming with the wind he walked unsteadily, as though nearly exhausted, stopping now and then to sit down and rest. The air was yet so murky that he had not noticed me until I came near him, when, staggering to his feet from an old buffalo skull he had been sitting on, he waved his hand weakly and tried to whoop, but the effort set him to coughing as he halted and leaned on his rifle. As I reached him I noticed that his wolfskin overcoat that he wore at starting from camp was missing and his other clothes were much soiled, apparently having been wet in places, coated with adhering soot and ashes, and now frozen by the cold wind.
"Why, Jack!" I exclaimed as I reined up and dismounted, "how in the world did you live through the fire? And how did you get your clothes wet?"
"In the buffalo," he answered as he again began coughing.
"In what?" I asked in perplexity. "In a buffalo?"
As he attempted to explain, still coughing, I interrupted him with:
"Never mind, Jack; don't try to talk. I savvy. Here, let me help you on Prince, and when we get to camp you can tell us all about it."
Helping him on the horse, I walked alongside of him to camp, but insisted that he should not try to talk until his lungs got clear of the smoke and ashes he had inhaled.
When he had answered my questions as to how he had escaped the fire and got his clothes wet by replying, "In the buffalo," I was at first puzzled; but gradually the explanation dawned on me. He had tried the exploit I had read of to him and Tom the other night out of Cooper's "The Prairie."