102 The Wilderness Hunter 



had noticed several columns of smoke in the south- 

 east, showing that prairie fires were under way; 

 but we thought that they were too far off to endan- 

 ger our camp, and accordingly unsaddled our horses 

 and sat down to a dinner of bread, beans, and coffee. 

 Before we were through the smoke began to pour 

 over a ridge a mile distant in such quantities that 

 we ran thither with our slickers, hoping to find some 

 stretch of broken ground where the grass was sparse, 

 and where we could fight the fire with effect. Our 

 hopes were vain. Before we reached the ridge the 

 fire came over its crest, and ran down in a long 

 tongue between two scoria buttes. Here the grass 

 was quite short and thin, and we did our best to 

 beat out the flames ; but they gradually gained on us, 

 and as they reached the thicker grass lower down 

 the slope, they began to roar and dart forward in a 

 way that bade us pay heed to our own safety. Fi- 

 nally they reached a winding line of brushwood in 

 the bottom of the coulie; and as this burst into a 

 leaping blaze we saw it was high time to look to the 

 safety of our camp, and ran back to it at top speed. 

 Ferguson, who had been foremost in fighting the 

 fire, was already scorched and blackened. 



We were camped on the wagon trail which leads 

 along the divide almost due south to Sentinel Butte. 

 The line of fire was fanned by a southeasterly breeze, 

 and was therefore advancing diagonally to the di- 

 vide. If we could drive the wagon southward on 



