Scarcely had the locusts disappeared, than what looked like a thick, black fog-bank was seen rising from the direction whence they had come. It approached nearer and nearer. Leblanc, riding forward, pointed it out to Burnett.
“The prairie is on fire,” he remarked.
“I know it is; I saw it from the first. But I don’t think it will come near us.”
“I am not quite so sure of that. It comes on fast, and the grass here is very long,” said the guide.
“Then we’ll make our way to yonder knoll, where it is shorter,” said Burnett, who was not to be put out by Indians, locusts, or prairie fires.
The word was given to drag the carts towards the spot Burnett had indicated.
“A fire on the prairie is a serious matter, is it not?” observed Loraine, in a tone of inquiry.
“I do not much fear it, notwithstanding,” answered Burnett. “We shall have a storm before long, I suspect, and that will fight the flames.”
“I should have thought that a storm would be more likely to fan them into greater fury,” remarked Loraine, who considered that Burnett was not sufficiently alive to the dangers they might have to encounter from the fire.
“Not if it rains as I expect it will,” observed Burnett. “Look at that cloud ahead. It contains a torrent sufficient to extinguish the fiercest flames.”