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. 



5* 



