CHAPTER XXI 



JACK^S CLOSE CALL 



/^N the plains a prairie fire is always something 

 ^^ to be dreaded, for with the usual breeze, which 

 often amounts to a gale, a fire in heavy, dry grass 

 is almost invariably uncontrollable and a source 

 of terror to the luckless traveller who happens to 

 be in its track. 



Such a fire originates most commonly from the 

 embers of a camp-fire — left by some careless or 

 inexperienced traveller — blown by a rising wind 

 out into the adjacent dry grass or, in the spring 

 of the year, by fires purposely set out in the old 

 grass by the Indians to clear the ground for the 

 next crop. 



An essay might be written on prairie fires and 

 the dangers from them and on the best means of 

 fighting them. I have now only to tell of how 

 one of us was caught in one. 



For the next few days after Wild Bill and Cap- 

 tain Saunders had left us we were all busy taking 

 in wolf pelts. The season was fast passing, and 

 we yet lacked several hundred skins of the three 

 thousand that we had declared that we would 

 gather before quitting. 



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