When the trader and his two companions were safe beyond the range of the fire, they looked around on every side for their late friends; but no trace could be seen of man or beast. The great mass of flame made visible a wide circle of prairie; beyond that circle all was profound darkness.
They rode on farther into the gloom. The circle of light began to decrease in area as they got farther away from the blazing hills. Still there was no sign of life. Their companions had evidently deserted them.
McDermott determined to encamp where he was, and to trust to daylight to show him his friends or restore to him at least some portion of his lost goods. The Assineboines had indeed acted in a cowardly manner. They had ridden straight away into the plains to a spot many miles distant. A sudden panic appeared to have possessed them. Abandoning the trader to his fate, they had retired to concoct amongst themselves fresh plans for the future.
Leaving McDermott, gloomily watching from his bleak bivouac the raging fire as it flew along its course to the south, we must come back to our camp, where sat the Cree, Donogh, the Assineboine prisoner, and his capturers, by the fire in the Wolverine hills.
The Cree and his prisoner had just finished their meal of dry meat and tea—the latter a luxury which Donogh gave them as a great treat, making no distinction between his ally the Cree and his captive the Assineboine—when from the hill close by there sounded the low plaintive cry of a wolf.
I recognized instantly my friend’s signal, and made answer in the fashion the Sioux had taught me. Then Red Cloud came riding up into the circle of light which surrounded the camp-fire, and safe after a long and adventurous day our little prairie party stood once more united.
The Sioux did not lose time, however, in asking questions or in listening to the recital of the day’s work. There was still much to be done ere it was time to sit down and eat or rest. The questions and answers would keep.
Bidding me follow him, and telling Donogh and the Cree to keep watch, with his gun at the “ready,” over the prisoner, whose legs were still firmly fastened together, he walked straight from the camp into the dark hills towards the south.
Walking close behind him in his footsteps, I waited anxiously to know what this new movement portended. I had not long, however, to wait. Some little distance to the south of the camp a chain of lakelets, partly joined together by swamps, ran through the hills from east to west. Passing over one of the causeways of hard, dry ground which lay at intervals through this chain, and going round a small lake until he had reached the farther side of the water, the Sioux stopped and turned to me.
“Now,” he said, “I am going to [fire the grass] along the edge of this water. The wind blows strongly from the north—it will blow stronger when this grass is on fire. Standing in the wet reeds you will be perfectly safe from the flames; they will quickly burn away from you. I will fire the grass in many places along this line. I want you to do the same to the east while I do it to the west. The flames will not burn back towards the north in the face of this wind, and across these wet swamps, but to the south! Ah! there you will see such a blaze as you never before saw in your life!”