THE PRAIRIES. 55 



sight of the flowing waters of a river. They rush down the 

 bank. Perchance the stream is too rapid or too deep to be 

 forded. At the water's edge they at length dismount, when 

 the Indians, drawing forth flint and steel, set fire to the grass 

 on the bank. The smoke well-nigh stifles them, but the flames 

 pass on, clearing an open space ; and now, crouching down 

 to the water's edge, they see the fearful conflagration rapidly 

 approaching. The fire they have created meets the flames 

 which have been raging far and wide across the region. 

 And now the wind carries the smoke in dense masses over 

 their heads ; but their lives are saved — and at length they 

 may venture to ride along the banks, over the still smoulder- 

 ing embers, till a ford is reached, and they may cross the 

 river to where the grass still flourishes in rich luxuriance. 



While, on one side of the stream, charred trees are seen 

 rising out of the blackened ground, on the other all is green 

 and smiling. These fearful prairie fires, by which thousands 

 of acres of grass and numberless forests have been destroyed, 

 are almost always caused by the thoughtless Indians, either 

 for the sake of turning the herds of buffaloes towards 

 the direction they desire them to take, or else for signals 

 made as a sign to distant allies. Sometimes travellers have 

 carelessly left a camp-fire still burning, when the wind has 

 carried the blazing embers to some portion of the surround- 

 ing dry herbage, and a fearful conflagration has been the 

 result. 



Mr. Paul Kane, the Canadian artist and traveller, mentions 

 one which he witnessed from Fort Edmonton. The wind 

 was blowing a perfect hurricane when the conflagration was 

 seen sweeping over the prairie, across which they had passed 

 but a few hours before. The night was intensely dark, add- 



