Homestcading 



the folk we came upon were directed to saving 

 this shack and stable. 



The willows and brush on the south side were 

 still burning, but so far the wood on the north 

 and east of the water, which was about one 

 hundred yards across, had not caught. If this 

 happened, the poor little farmsteading was 

 almost sure to go too. 



Fortunately, the ground immediately to the 

 east of the slough and buildings had been grazed 

 over by the couple of cows and heifers of the 

 homestead, so the grass was only long in places, 

 and there still remained a couple of hundred 

 yards between the creeping points of fire and 

 the dry scrub. 



I say *' creeping," because it is in this insidious 

 way that a prairie fire advances when there is 

 not much wind and the grass is short. But 

 let it reach a patch of long dry grass or get into 

 a bluff, and the case is very different. It almost 

 seems to create a wind, which on the prairie is 

 never long absent, and away it goes, travelling at 

 a great speed. This is what had happened on 

 the south side of the little lake, and advanced 

 points of fire were now perhaps two miles away, 

 having burnt over a section of unoccupied C.P.R. 

 land which had been covered with the thick dry 

 grass grown during the last wet summer, 



368 



