152 In the United States vi 



indescribably black and dreary ; under the moonlight 

 — we started at four in the morning yesterday — the 

 effect was strange and artificial to a degree, looking 

 more like some queer, exaggerated stage effect than 

 a natural reality. A year or two more of this burning 

 and hunting will be done in this part of the world. 

 Good-bye, I am dead tired, we were in the saddle at 

 four in the morning and only reached here at four 

 in the afternoon.' 



Shortly after their return to it from one of their 

 hunting expeditions, Fort MacPherson narrowly 

 escaped destruction. One night the sky to the 

 southward was red with the glare of a great prairie 

 fire which had originated many miles away, by the 

 banks of the Republican River, and it was presently 

 discovered that this prairie fire was rushing with 

 alarming swiftness, over the hills and through the 

 valleys, straight towards the Fort. All the ground 

 in the vicinity of the latter was covered with high, 

 dry grass, and the only hope of saving the place 

 lay in the possibility of being able to burn this 

 grass down before the prairie fire could reach it, or, 

 in other words, in the possibility of being able to 

 form, in a very short space of time, a belt of bare 

 ground too broad for the flames to leap across. 

 Every soldier (the garrison consisted of eight 

 companies of infantry and three troops of cavalry) 

 and every civilian was turned out to attempt the 

 performance of this task ; and they found it to be 

 one of considerable danger for, owing to the height 



