THE GEOEGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 267 



lie upon the prairies, entangling the feet of man and horse, as they are passing over 

 them. 



Over the elevated lauds and j)rairie blatfs, where the grass is thin and short, the 

 fire slowly creeps with a feeble flame, which one can easily step over (Plate 127); 

 where the wild animals often rest in their lairs until the flames almost burn their 

 noses, when they will reluctantly rise, and leap over it, and trot off amongst the cin- 

 ders, where the fire has passed and left the ground as black as jet. These scenes at 

 night become indescribably beautiful, when their flames are seen at many miles dis- 

 tance, creeping over the sides and tops of the bluffs, appearing to be sparkling and 

 brilliant chains of liquid fixe (the hills being lost to the view), hanging suspended in 

 graceful festoons from the skies. 



But there is yet another character of burning prairies (Plate 128), that requires an- 

 other letter, and a different pen to describe — the war, or hell of fires ! where the grass 

 is seven or eight feet high, as is often the case for many miles together, on the Missouri 

 bottoms ; and the flames are driven forward by the hurricanes, which often sweep over 

 the vast prairies of this denuded country. There are many of these meadows on the 

 Missouri, the Platte, and the Arkansas, of many miles in breadth, which are perfectly 

 level, with a waving grass, so high that we are obliged to stand erect in our stirrups 

 in order to look over its waving tops, as we are riding through it. The fire in these, 

 before such a wind, travels at an immense and frightful rate, and often destroys, on 

 their fleetest horses, parties of Indians, who are so unlucky as to be overtaken by it ; 

 not that it travels as fast as ahorse at full speed, but that the high grass is filled with 

 wild pea-vines and other impediments, which render it necessary for the rider to guide 

 his horse in the zig-zag paths of the deer and buffaloes, retarding his progress, until 

 he is overtaken by the dense column of smoke that is swept before the fire — alarming 

 the horse, which stops and stands terrified and immutable, till the burning grass which 

 is wafted in the wind, falls about him, kindling up in a moment a thousand new fires, 

 which are instantly wrapped in the swelling flood of smoke that is moving on like a 

 black thunder-cloud, rolling on the earth, with its lightning's glare, and its thunder 

 rumbling as it goes. * * * 



When Ba'tiste, and Bogard, and I, and Patrick Raymond (who like Bogard had 

 been a free trapper in the Rocky Mountains), and Fah-me-o-ne-qua (the Red Thunder), 

 our guide back from a neighboring village, were jogging along on the summit of an 

 elevated bluff, overlooking an immense valley of high grass, through which we were 

 about to lay our course. » * * 



"Well, then, you say you haVe seen the prairies on fire?" "Yes." " You have ' 

 seen the fire on the mountains, and beheld it feebly creeping over the grassy hills of 

 the north, where the toad and the timid snail were pacing from its approach — all this 

 you have seen, and who has not ? But who has seen the vivid lightnings and heard 

 the roaring thunder of the rolling conflagration which sweeps over the deep-clad prai- 

 ries of the West ? Who has dashed, on his wild horse, through an ocean of grass, 

 with the raging tempest at his back, rolling over the land its swelling waves of liquid 

 fire?" "What!" "Ay, even so. Ask the red savage of the wilds what is awful and 

 sublime — ask him where the Great Spirit has mixed up all the elements of death, and 

 if he does not blow them over the land in a storm of fire? Ask him what foe he lias 

 met, that regarded not his frightening yells, or his sinewy bow ? Ask these lords of 

 the land, who vauuti ugly challenge the thunder and lightning of Heaven, whether 

 there is not one foe thattravels over their land, too swift for their feet and too mighty 

 for their strength, at whose approach their stout hearts sicken and their strong-armed 

 courage withers to nothing? Ask him again (if he is sullen, and his eyes set in their 



sockets). 'Hush! sh! sh!' he will tell you, with a soul too proud to 



confess, his head sunk on his breast, and his hand over his mouth), 'That's medi- 

 cine!' * » *» 



I said to my comrades, as we were about to descend from the towering bluffs into 

 the prairie, " We will take that buffalo trail, where the traveling herds liave slashed 



