Buell Hampton

by Willis George Emerson

The people ceased jesting now, for the scene was awe-inspiring. A stillness fell over the assemblage. Presently the rumble of wagons was heard on the different country roads leading into Meade. The country folks had taken alarm, and, with well-filled wagons containing their more valuable belongings, were hastening away from their lonely dugouts to the protection of the town.

Some of the townspeople were inclined, at first, to jeer at the fears of the farmers and ranchmen; but beneath their jeering there had anchored a universal lodestone of depression and apprehension. Arrangements were hastily made to protect the town by back-firing, and by plowing furrows in the prairie sod on its western, southern, and northern limits. Hundreds of willing hands volunteered to do this work. The fireline grew plainer as it continued its eastward advance. The shifting banks of smoke now resembled a seething ocean of tumult. Some of the clouds were as yellow as molten gold, while others appeared blood-stained, and fearful to look upon. The entire western sky was aglow; and even high in the heavens were restless, shifting banks of rose-tinted clouds, that feathered and paled into a fringe of dissolving pink and white.

The streets were crowded with the inhabitants of the surrounding country. By midnight a quiver of fear had shot through every heart, and the weird light of the fire was casting a deathlike pallor over every face. A dull, threatening roar could be heard. The flames were leaping one upon another, like the incoming waves of the billowy deep, ever changing and seething like an army of hissing serpents. Their forked tongues shot high into the emblazoned clouds, fantastically lighting up the landscape.

The hoarse, doleful bellowing of cattle was heard in the distance. A smell of burning grass filled the air with stifling odor. The cattle came nearer, and the sound of their trampling hoofs resembled the sullen mutterings of thunder. A command was given to turn the herds from the principal streets, but it was unavailing. Before the people realized the danger, nearly a thousand beeves, bellowing in stampeded terror, rushed pell-mell through the streets of Meade, horning each other in their fury, and trampling to death any unfortunate who happened to get in their way. They finally corralled themselves in the public square.

Captain Osborn’s sonorous voice was heard above the tumult, calling for additional volunteers to help fight the oncoming flames.

Horses were hastily hitched to wagons in which barrels of water were placed. Blankets, old coats, quilts, gunny-sacks, and every conceivable kind of cast-off garments were hastily secured and fastened to hoe and fork handles and poles, to be used by the brave men in fighting the fire. These recruits hastened to the limits of the town, and joined the fire-fighters, who were now begrimed with soot and smoke even beyond recognition. They continued back-firing, but it was practically unavailing. The fire would burn in the buffalo-grass only when going with the wind. The teams and breaking-plows were hastily transferred to a point nearer the town, and here wide, deep furrows were plowed. The firemen then burned the grass between these headlands, but their efforts were to prove futile in checking the sweeping flames.

Then a wildly novel scene occurred. Flocks of prairie-hens, quails, meadow-larks, and thrushes, all blinded, singed, and frightened, began flying against the buildings, many of them falling to the earth either crippled or dead. The entire town echoed with fluttering wings. Wolves, driven from their dens and haunts by the prostrating heat, rushed by the fire-fighters in frantic fright. Soon the town was fairly besieged by these frenzied animals. Their advent seemed to madden the already infuriated cattle, and a general mjlie and warfare to the death ensued. The yelps and barking cries of this bedlam were at once pitiful and terrible. Dozens of wolves were gored to death.

Hundreds of jack-rabbits, their long ears lying flat upon their backs, came bounding in from the burning prairie. The wolves had been intimidated by the sharp horns of the terrified cattle, but now they turned, with many a snarl and growl, upon the rabbits, and killed scores of these helpless habituis of the Great Southwest.

The people had taken refuge in the upper stories, and on the roofs of buildings, to protect themselves from the savage arena below. As the fire drew nearer, and the light and heat became more intensified, a spectral hue fell over the blanched faces of all.

A suffocating fear, far exceeding even that of the hot winds, enveloped the beleaguered town of Meade. The situation was desperate. The flames, in their maddened fury of triumph, were rushing on the wings of the wind toward their defenseless victims. The brave battalion of firefighters was forced to retire in haste before the stifling heat. The western fronts of the buildings were as light as noonday, while to the eastward the long shadows danced, grew less distinct, and then darkened, as the scarlet smoke rose and fell, producing strange and weird phantoms.