The Pkairie on Fire. 105 



on the right hand and on the left, it moved in a line 

 of fire, leaving no escape save an onward flight. I 

 stood spell-bound as it approached ; that mighty 

 prairie seemed rolled up, as it swept along, like a vast 

 scroll, while the impenetrable obscurity behind it was 

 like the darkness that was of old on the face of the 

 deep. It approached — it surrounded — ^it enveloped 



me within its folds, when 1 awoke, and behold it 



was a dream! and "yet not all a dream." The fire 

 we had kindled in front of our shantee, had crept 

 along the dry leaves until it reached the foot of a dead 

 fir tree, among whose thick and withered branches, a 

 wild grape-vine had spread its thousand tendrils. 

 That too was dead ; the fire had crept up the dry 

 trunk of that dead fir tree, and having reached the net- 

 work of vines and sapless branches, it burst out into a 

 brilliant flame. When I started from my sleep it was 

 flashing and creaking, and swirling upwards, lighting 

 up forest and lake, like a vast torch in the hand of 

 some gigantic demon of the woods. 



