CHAPTER XXI

JACK'S CLOSE CALL

On the plains a prairie fire is always something to be dreaded, for with the usual breeze, which often amounts to a gale, a fire in heavy, dry grass is almost invariably uncontrollable and a source of terror to the luckless traveller who happens to be in its track.

Such a fire originates most commonly from the embers of a camp-fire--left by some careless or inexperienced traveller--blown by a rising wind out into the adjacent dry grass or, in the spring of the year, by fires purposely set out in the old grass by the Indians to clear the ground for the next crop.

An essay might be written on prairie fires and the dangers from them and on the best means of fighting them. I have now only to tell of how one of us was caught in one.

For the next few days after Wild Bill and Captain Saunders had left us we were all busy taking in wolf pelts. The season was fast passing, and we yet lacked several hundred skins of the three thousand that we had declared that we would gather before quitting.

One cold, windy day, when a gale was blowing from the northwest, Jack started out alone and afoot--he said it was too cold and windy to ride--to kill a few buffalo wolf baits.

Crossing the creek below the beaver dam, to look for buffalo in the prairie beyond, he soon passed out of sight, while Tom and I busied ourselves taking up the dried skins and baling them. We heard the report of Jack's carbine occasionally and knew by the direction of the sounds that he was to windward of camp--about northwest.

After Jack had been out for some time Tom took the field-glass and went up onto the bluff south of our camp, from which he could view the prairie north of the creek.

He gazed long and intently through the glass in Jack's direction and presently started back to camp on a run.

I knew that something unusual was up. We had heard no uncommon firing from Jack, but, on seeing Tom hurrying down the hill, my thought was: "Indians about or Jack's in trouble." Dropping my work, I rushed down into the dugout, seized both rifles, and, with a few blocks of cartridges, ran back up onto the bank again, looking first toward Tom and then to the timber north of us. There was no sign or sound of an enemy.

When the old man arrived, breathless from running, he noted my preparations for war and gasped out as fast as he could catch his breath:

"No! no Injuns! See the big smoke over the tree tops? Prairie's all afire out that way! Comin' fast! I'm afraid Jack's caught in it. I saw him just before I noticed the fire. He was out in the bottom 'bout midway between the timber and the lodge-pole trail, a-working on a buffalo he'd killed, and just then I noticed a lone Injun riding along the trail the other side of Jack; and I saw the infernal rascal halt when he got right to windward of Jack, and dismount and squat down in the grass; and then come a puff of smoke and the prairie was afire. And then the Injun got on his pony and galloped along the trail a piece and fired the grass again. And this he repeated several times. The cuss had seen Jack and fired the grass to try to burn him up, and I'm afraid he's done it, for I don't see how Jack could escape without he could fly, for when I left the bluff the fires had all run together and were a-coming toward Jack like a race-horse, in a wall of flames that seemed to leap twenty feet high at times."

"What can we do, Tom?" I asked. "Can't we do something to help him?"

"I don't see what we can do," replied the old man with a look of despair, "but you run down to the stable and clap the saddle onto Prince, and be ready to go and look for what's left of him soon as the fire burns out. It'll stop when it gets to the creek and quick as the smoke clears away so's you can stand it, you be ready to light out."

I rushed to the stable and he followed me, talking as I saddled up.

"Near as I could make him out through the glass, I believe it's that infernal old Broken Nose that's done this job. It looked some like him and I noticed he climbed on and off his pony like an old man."

I soon had Prince saddled and led him up onto the bank, where we impatiently waited what seemed an endless time but was really only a few minutes.

The fire was now roaring and crackling just beyond the strip of timber bordering the creek. The smoke would probably have been stifling in our camp by this time, but on striking the timber the wind had given it an upward pitch that sent most of it above us.

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."

On reaching camp I hurriedly told Tom of Jack's exploit and his condition and suggested that no questions be asked for the present. We helped him into the dugout and put him to bed. I explained to Tom how, as I conjectured, Jack had escaped the fire but the Irishman was not in a condition to tell us about that, though it was with difficulty that we kept him from trying to talk.

By the next forenoon our Irishman was able to talk without much difficulty.

"Well, sir," he began in a weak voice, "I believe it's the closest call I've had this long time, and I never want to get into such another tight place, where breath is so scarce. I'd killed the buffalo and begun ripping open the hide to skin it back, and just then I got a smell of grass a-burning, and, looking up, I saw in a jiffy what a trap I was in and no way out of it unless I could fly. Suddenly I thought of that skame that Peck read about the other night, and in a minute I was cutting and slashing in blood up to my shoulders.

"I ripped open the throat and cut off the windpipe and cut loose everything around the lights inside as far as I could reach. Then I started in behind the brisket and ripped open the belly and reached in and got a holt of the windpipe and begun pulling the entrails back, and all the time I was too busy to look up to see how nigh the fire was a-getting; but I knew by the smoke thick around me and the roar of the fire that I didn't have any time to fool away.

"When I got the in'ards dragged out I placed my wolfskin coat over the opening I'd made in the breast and then propped up the short ribs and flank with me carbine so's I could crawl in, and in I went, pulling my carbine in after me; and none too soon, either, for the fire was roaring around me and I could smell the wool a-burning in a second after I'd got inside.

"And then's when I begun to smell hell for sure! The little bit of fresh air that was inside the buffalo soon gave way to hot smoke, and oh, man! it was horrible! I hope I may never come so nigh suffocation again.

"After the fire had passed and I began to breathe again, I felt weak and all gone, like I hadn't strength enough to crawl out of the carcass. I wondthered whether you would ever find my remains. I laid there awhile and by and by I began to feel better, and then I crawfished out backwards. After shaking myself together I says to myself, says I, 'Never say die, Jacky boy! You're better than two dead men yet, so you are!' And picking up my carbine I made a brave stagger for camp, but if you hadn't met me with the horse it's a long time I'd 'a' been getting here, so I would."