Hunting tlie P7^07tg-Btcck. 85 



the trees at the upper end of this coulie. As I galloped 

 by I saw that the fire had struck the trees a quarter of a 

 mile below me ; in the dried timber it instantly sprang 

 aloft like a giant, and roared in a thunderous monotone 

 as it swept up the coulie. I galloped to the hill ridge 

 ahead, saw that the fire line had already reached the 

 divide, and turned my horse sharp on his haunches. As I 

 again passed under the trees, the fire, running like a race- 

 horse in the brush, had reached the road ; its breath was 

 hot in my face ; tongues of quivering flame leaped over 

 my head and kindled the grass on the hillside fifty 

 yards away. 



When I got back to camp Ferguson had taken meas- 

 ures for the safety of the wagon. He had moved it across 

 the coulie, which at this point had a wet bottom, making 

 a bar to the progress of the flames until they had time to 

 work across lower down. Meanwhile we fought to keep 

 the fire from entering a well-grassed space on the hither 

 side of the coulie, between it and a row of scoria buttes. 

 Favored by a streak of clay ground, where the grass was 

 sparse, we succeeded in beating out the flame as it reached 

 this clay streak, and again beating it out when it ran 

 round the buttes and began to back up towards us against 

 the wind. Then we recrossed the coulie with the wagon^ 

 before the fire swept up the farther side ; and so, when 

 the flames passed by, they left us camped on a green oasis 

 in the midst of a charred, smoking desert. We thus 

 saved some good grazing for our horses. 



But our fight with the fire had only begun. No stock- 

 man will see a fire waste the range and destroy the winter 



