The Prairie (42 page)

"When we get lower into the hunting-grounds of the Pawnees," said the
trapper, laying a morsel of delicate venison before Inez, on a little
trencher neatly made of horn, and expressly for his own use, "we shall
find the buffaloes fatter and sweeter, the deer in more abundance, and
all the gifts of the Lord abounding to satisfy our wants. Perhaps we may
even strike a beaver, and get a morsel from his tail
[17]
by way of a rare
mouthful."

"What course do you mean to pursue, when you have once thrown these
bloodhounds from the chase?" demanded Middleton.

"If I might advise," said Paul, "it would be to strike a water-course,
and get upon its downward current, as soon as may be. Give me a
cotton-wood, and I will turn you out a canoe that shall carry us all,
the jackass excepted, in perhaps the work of a day and a night. Ellen,
here, is a lively girl enough, but then she is no great race-rider; and
it would be far more comfortable to boat six or eight hundred miles,
than to go loping along like so many elks measuring the prairies;
besides, water leaves no trail."

"I will not swear to that," returned the trapper; "I have often thought
the eyes of a Red-skin would find a trail in air."

"See, Middleton," exclaimed Inez, in a sudden burst of youthful
pleasure, that caused her for a moment to forget her situation, "how
lovely is that sky; surely it contains a promise of happier times!"

"It is glorious!" returned her husband. "Glorious and heavenly is that
streak of vivid red, and here is a still brighter crimson; rarely have I
seen a richer rising of the sun.

"Rising of the sun!" slowly repeated the old man, lifting his tall
person from its seat with a deliberate and abstracted air, while he
kept his eye riveted on the changing, and certainly beautiful tints,
that were garnishing the vault of Heaven. "Rising of the sun! I like not
such risings of the sun. Ah's me! the imps have circumvented us with a
vengeance. The prairie is on fire!"

"God in Heaven protect us!" cried Middleton, catching Inez to his bosom,
under the instant impression of the imminence of their danger. "There is
no time to lose, old man; each instant is a day; let us fly."

"Whither?" demanded the trapper, motioning him, with calmness and
dignity, to arrest his steps. "In this wilderness of grass and reeds,
you are like a vessel in the broad lakes without a compass. A single
step on the wrong course might prove the destruction of us all. It is
seldom danger is so pressing, that there is not time enough for reason
to do its work, young officer; therefore let us await its biddings."

"For my own part," said Paul Hover, looking about him with no equivocal
expression of concern, "I acknowledge, that should this dry bed of weeds
get fairly in a flame, a bee would have to make a flight higher than
common to prevent his wings from scorching. Therefore, old trapper, I
agree with the captain, and say mount and run."

"Ye are wrong—ye are wrong; man is not a beast to follow the gift of
instinct, and to snuff up his knowledge by a taint in the air, or a
rumbling in the sound; but he must see and reason, and then conclude.
So follow me a little to the left, where there is a rise in the ground,
whence we may make our reconnoitrings."

The old man waved his hand with authority, and led the way without
further parlance to the spot he had indicated, followed by the whole of
his alarmed companions. An eye less practised than that of the trapper
might have failed in discovering the gentle elevation to which he
alluded, and which looked on the surface of the meadow like a growth
a little taller than common. When they reached the place, however, the
stinted grass itself announced the absence of that moisture, which had
fed the rank weeds of most of the plain, and furnished a clue to the
evidence by which he had judged of the formation of the ground hidden
beneath. Here a few minutes were lost in breaking down the tops of
the surrounding herbage, which, notwithstanding the advantage of their
position, rose even above the heads of Middleton and Paul, and in
obtaining a look-out that might command a view of the surrounding sea of
fire.

The frightful prospect added nothing to the hopes of those who had so
fearful a stake in the result. Although the day was beginning to dawn,
the vivid colours of the sky continued to deepen, as if the fierce
element were bent on an impious rivalry of the light of the sun. Bright
flashes of flame shot up here and there, along the margin of the waste,
like the nimble coruscations of the North, but far more angry and
threatening in their colour and changes. The anxiety on the rigid
features of the trapper sensibly deepened, as he leisurely traced these
evidences of a conflagration, which spread in a broad belt about their
place of refuge, until he had encircled the whole horizon.

Shaking his head, as he again turned his face to the point where the
danger seemed nighest and most rapidly approaching, the old man said—

"Now have we been cheating ourselves with the belief, that we had thrown
these Tetons from our trail, while here is proof enough that they not
only know where we lie, but that they intend to smoke us out, like so
many skulking beasts of prey. See; they have lighted the fire around the
whole bottom at the same moment, and we are as completely hemmed in by
the devils as an island by its waters."

"Let us mount and ride," cried Middleton; "is life not worth a
struggle?"

"Whither would ye go? Is a Teton horse a salamander that he can walk
amid fiery flames unhurt, or do you think the Lord will show his might
in your behalf, as in the days of old, and carry you harmless through
such a furnace as you may see glowing beneath yonder red sky? There are
Siouxes, too, hemming the fire with their arrows and knives on every
side of us, or I am no judge of their murderous deviltries."

"We will ride into the centre of the whole tribe," returned the youth
fiercely, "and put their manhood to the test."

"Ay, it's well in words, but what would it prove in deeds? Here is a
dealer in bees, who can teach you wisdom in a matter like this."

"Now for that matter, old trapper," said Paul, stretching his athletic
form like a mastiff conscious of his strength, "I am on the side of the
captain, and am clearly for a race against the fire, though it line me
into a Teton wigwam. Here is Ellen, who will—"

"Of what use, of what use are your stout hearts, when the element of the
Lord is to be conquered as well as human men. Look about you, friends;
the wreath of smoke, that is rising from the bottoms, plainly says that
there is no outlet from this spot, without crossing a belt of fire. Look
for yourselves, my men; look for yourselves; if you can find a single
opening, I will engage to follow."

The examination, which his companions so instantly and so intently
made, rather served to assure them of their desperate situation, than
to appease their fears. Huge columns of smoke were rolling up from the
plain, and thickening in gloomy masses around the horizon. The red glow,
which gleamed upon their enormous folds, now lighting their volumes with
the glare of the conflagration, and now flashing to another point, as
the flame beneath glided ahead, leaving all behind enveloped in awful
darkness, and proclaiming louder than words the character of the
imminent and approaching danger.

"This is terrible!" exclaimed Middleton, folding the trembling Inez to
his heart. "At such a time as this, and in such a manner!"

"The gates of Heaven are open to all who truly believe," murmured the
pious devotee in his bosom.

"This resignation is maddening! But we are men, and will make a struggle
for our lives! how now, my brave and spirited friend, shall we yet mount
and push across the flames, or shall we stand here, and see those we
most love perish in this frightful manner, without an effort?"

"I am for a swarming time, and a flight before the hive is too hot to
hold us," said the bee-hunter, to whom it will be at once seen that
Middleton addressed himself. "Come, old trapper, you must acknowledge
this is but a slow way of getting out of danger. If we tarry here much
longer, it will be in the fashion that the bees lie around the straw
after the hive has been smoked for its honey. You may hear the fire
begin to roar already, and I know by experience, that when the flame
once gets fairly into the prairie grass, it is no sloth that can outrun
it."

"Think you," returned the old man, pointing scornfully at the mazes of
the dry and matted grass which environed them, "that mortal feet can
outstrip the speed of fire, on such a path! If I only knew now on which
side these miscreants lay!"

"What say you, friend Doctor," cried the bewildered Paul, turning to
the naturalist with that sort of helplessness with which the strong are
often apt to seek aid of the weak, when human power is baffled by the
hand of a mightier being, "what say you; have you no advice to give
away, in a case of life and death?"

The naturalist stood, tablets in hand, looking at the awful spectacle
with as much composure as if the conflagration had been lighted in order
to solve the difficulties of some scientific problem. Aroused by
the question of his companion, he turned to his equally calm though
differently occupied associate, the trapper, demanding, with the most
provoking insensibility to the urgent nature of their situation—

"Venerable hunter, you have often witnessed similar prismatic
experiments—"

He was rudely interrupted by Paul, who struck the tablets from his
hands, with a violence that betrayed the utter intellectual confusion
which had overset the equanimity of his mind. Before time was allowed
for remonstrance, the old man, who had continued during the whole scene
like one much at a loss how to proceed, though also like one who was
rather perplexed than alarmed, suddenly assumed a decided air, as if he
no longer doubted on the course it was most advisable to pursue.

"It is time to be doing," he said, interrupting the controversy that was
about to ensue between the naturalist and the bee-hunter; "it is time to
leave off books and moanings, and to be doing."

"You have come to your recollections too late, miserable old man," cried
Middleton; "the flames are within a quarter of a mile of us, and the
wind is bringing them down in this quarter with dreadful rapidity."

"Anan! the flames! I care but little for the flames. If I only knew how
to circumvent the cunning of the Tetons, as I know how to cheat the fire
of its prey, there would be nothing needed but thanks to the Lord for
our deliverance. Do you call this a fire? If you had seen what I have
witnessed in the Eastern hills, when mighty mountains were like the
furnace of smith, you would have known what it was to fear the flames,
and to be thankful that you were spared! Come, lads, come; 'tis time to
be doing now, and to cease talking; for yonder curling flame is truly
coming on like a trotting moose. Put hands upon this short and withered
grass where we stand, and lay bare the 'arth."

"Would you think to deprive the fire of its victims in this childish
manner?" exclaimed Middleton.

A faint but solemn smile passed over the features of the old man, as he
answered—

"Your grand'ther would have said, that when the enemy was nigh, a
soldier could do no better than to obey."

The captain felt the reproof, and instantly began to imitate the
industry of Paul, who was tearing the decayed herbage from the ground in
a sort of desperate compliance with the trapper's direction. Even Ellen
lent her hands to the labour, nor was it long before Inez was seen
similarly employed, though none amongst them knew why or wherefore.
When life is thought to be the reward of labour, men are wont to be
industrious. A very few moments sufficed to lay bare a spot of some
twenty feet in diameter. Into one edge of this little area the trapper
brought the females, directing Middleton and Paul to cover their light
and inflammable dresses with the blankets of the party. So soon as this
precaution was observed, the old man approached the opposite margin of
the grass, which still environed them in a tall and dangerous circle,
and selecting a handful of the driest of the herbage he placed it over
the pan of his rifle. The light combustible kindled at the flash. Then
he placed the little flame in a bed of the standing fog, and withdrawing
from the spot to the centre of the ring, he patiently awaited the
result.

The subtle element seized with avidity upon its new fuel, and in a
moment forked flames were gliding among the grass, as the tongues of
ruminating animals are seen rolling among their food, apparently in
quest of its sweetest portions.

"Now," said the old man, holding up a finger, and laughing in his
peculiarly silent manner, "you shall see fire fight fire! Ah's me! many
is the time I have burnt a smooty path, from wanton laziness to pick my
way across a tangled bottom."

"But is this not fatal?" cried the amazed Middleton; "are you not
bringing the enemy nigher to us instead of avoiding it?"

"Do you scorch so easily? your grand'ther had a tougher skin. But we
shall live to see; we shall all live to see."

The experience of the trapper was in the right. As the fire gained
strength and heat, it began to spread on three sides, dying of itself on
the fourth, for want of aliment. As it increased, and the sullen roaring
announced its power, it cleared every thing before it, leaving the black
and smoking soil far more naked than if the scythe had swept the place.
The situation of the fugitives would have still been hazardous had not
the area enlarged as the flame encircled them. But by advancing to the
spot where the trapper had kindled the grass, they avoided the heat,
and in a very few moments the flames began to recede in every quarter,
leaving them enveloped in a cloud of smoke, but perfectly safe from the
torrent of fire that was still furiously rolling onward.