Homesteading 



not entirely stop it, and thus enable us to gain 

 the upper hand. It is an excellent method of 

 stopping a grass fire under some circumstances, 

 and especially with horses in the plough; but 

 the oxen are slow, and on this occasion the frost 

 was not enough out of the ground, and there 

 were stones, so the plough kept jumping out. 



After some strenuous toil, those of us who were 

 working on the northern end and centre of the 

 line had succeeded in extinguishing the fire there, 

 and one by one joined those who were fighting 

 round the south and south-east comer of the 

 little lake and the scrub which siurounded it. 



Here the grass was much longer, and as the 

 smoke clouds had now passed away to the north- 

 west, the sun shone bright and hot, drying up 

 any last vestiges of the morning dew and parch- 

 ing the bleached prairie and the dry leaves of 

 the willow scrub, which fortunately the fire had 

 not yet reached. The wind, too, had drawn 

 more southerly and was rising, as it often does 

 as the day advances. The ground was so un- 

 even that the plough was useless, and the home- 

 steader, who had left his bulls standing hitched 

 to the plough, took off his waistcoat and even 

 his shirt, and used those garments in an endeavour 

 to beat out the advancing flames. We had, 

 however, little time to note these details, as we 



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