* JAN. 27, 1906. ] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 

SPRUCE TREES NEAR BEAR POND. 
Showing the effect of wind from the northwest. 
The Prairie Fires of Early Days. 
CoMPARATIVELY few perhaps of those who may 
read this have personally experienced the dan- 
gers and often fearful destruction wrought by 
the prairie fires of earlier days in the West, and 
which even now frequently sweep the vast 
prairies west of the Missouri and the rivers of 
the north. From earliest childhood to manhood 
I was familiar with this demon of the prairies, 
‘and no recollection of pioneer experiences stands 
out so clearly as those connected with these fiery 
trials. 
From the earliest settlement of this region 
down to perhaps 1876 or later, destructive prairie 
fires annually visited us in northern Iowa, and 
they were especially severe during the falls of 
1862 and 1867. None of the old pioneers will 
ever forget those terrible fires. During the ear- 
lier years the fires were, of course, fiercer and 
wilder, but not so destructive for the reason that 
the country then was so- sparsely settled. 
Houses, grain and haystacks, and sometimes 
stock and people, were destroyed by these wild 
fires. Every fall, and perhaps spring, the vast 
prairies would be swept by the fires, and they 
kept the settlers in constant fear and dread. 
-More than once did we come near being burned 
out, or having much property destroyed. After 
the first one or two hard frosts in the fall, and 
even up until the snow came, the settler looked 
for and expected these visitations. All the long 
weeks during the fall the air would be hazy with 
smoke from the prairie fires either nearby or far 
away, and always accompanied by that peculiar 
odor of burned wild grass. 
There was a sense of wildness and danger 
about all this, that in spite of the anxiety and 
dread which each one shared, lent a charm to 
the scene. The settler would break a few fur- 
rows around his home, hay and grain stacks, and 
then a second line of furrows five or ten rods 
from the first one, and then during a quiet day 
would set fire to the wild grass between these 
two strips and burn it off. This was his fire 
break. But often the fire would come sweeping 
along at a race-horse gait, jump the fire-break 
as easily as though it was only an Indian trail, 
and destroy everything in its path. The fire 
gathered wind, and when the grass was heavy 
and tall, as it was on the lower ground in early 
days, it was terrible, and nothing could stand 
before it. 
The fire always burned and advanced in a 
broad V-shaped form, broadening and widening 
as it advanced, and would sometimes jump 
twenty to forty rods, catch, and continue on, A 
great prairie fire would sometimes advance with 
the mad rush of the wind for miles and miles 
over the country, when the wind would sud- 
denly shift and blow from a contrary direction, 
TREES AS COMPASSES. 
compelling it to back-fire or burn against the 
wind, This was watched day and night by the 
settlers, as they knew only too well that any mo- 
ment the wind might change and the fire come 
on again in its mad rush. - 
Well do I remember how night after night we 
would watch the distant fires ready at a mo- 
ment’s notice with bundles of hazel brush, mops 
and wet rags to begin back-firing to save ours or 
another’s property; and distinctly do I recall 
what fierce times we would have fighting the 
flames, sometimes all day long and far into the 
night. The flames would momentarily become 
less fierce as the wind died down, and then 
breeze up again, and only too often the fire 
would spread with renewed fury over the ground 
we had gained, and we would all be compelled to 
run and await our chance to fight it again. Inch 
by inch we would gain upon it, only to be over- 
whelmed by it and compelled to retreat again. 
The men, women and children had to fight for 
dear life. Sometimes we would conquer, some- 
times not. All were nearly roasted and blistered 
by the fierce heat and blackened by the dense 
smoke. But home and all we held dear de- 
pended upon it, and all must fight—and we did. 
Beyond the prairies were black and dead, cov- 
ered with ashes of the burned grass, and whirl- 
winds passed hither and thither, carrying great 
black columns of ashes far up into the sky. The 
roar and crackling of the flames as they rushed 
through the tall grass and the heavy billows of 
smoke were indeed appalling, and only by those 
accustomed to such wild scenes of danger and 
destruction could they be faced. In spite of all 
efforts, sometimes the settler’s home and all he 
possessed on earth would be swept away, and all 
he would have left would be the few smoulder- 
ing ruins on the prairie. 
One day, about the middle of October, 18590, 
one of our neighbors, a Mr. Whitney, had ob- 
served a prairie fire a few miles away to the 
southeast, and had anxiously watched it, but as 
the wind was in the opposite direction and it 
was backing against the wind, they did not ap- 
prehend much danger from it for a few hours, 
so the family sat down to eat. While they were 
at the meal smoke began to pour into :the room, 
and on looking out they found they ‘were sur- 
rounded by the prairie fire and the east part of 
their house was all ablaze. The wind had sud- 
denly veered to the southeast without their notic- 
ing it, and the fire had come down on them with 
terrible speed. They were forced to break the 
windows and climb out of them to save their 
lives. Everything was destroyed, together with 
a pen of hogs and hay and grain stacks standing 
near. 
These fires would often burn for weeks in the 
sloughs where the peat was more or less dry, 
and was thus a standing menace to the settler, 
On the barren grounds of Northern Labrador. 

RESTING ON A PORTAGE, 
Photo by L. S. Quackenbush. 
ready at any moment to break out again, provid- 
ing there was yet more grass to burn. 
A prairie fire at night was a wild and grand 
sight, and one watching it at a distance of a mile 
or two could easily imagine he saw scores of 
Indians moving rapidly along the line—an illu- 
sion caused by the swiftly changing height of 
the flames. 
Every spring and fall the evening sky would 
be lit up by the lurid glow of innumerable prairie 
fires all around, and the air would be loaded 
with their smoke. The fires would be started in 
various ways. Sometimes people out of pure 
cussedness and the desire to see it burn would 
start them, while sometimes they would be 
started by getting away from the settler as he 
was attempting to burn a fire-break around his 
cabin, hay and grain stacks, and again the In- 
dians would start them, 
CLEMENT L. WEBSTER. 
CHARLES Ciry, Ia. 
The Bison in Harness. 
Jamestown, N. Y., Jan. 13.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: The picture in your issue of Jan. 
6, of the Secretary of the American Bison So- 
ciety driving a pair of buffalo calves, strikes to 
my notion a discordant note. I remember once 
seeing in the West a pair of magnificent elk in 
the harness, and the spectacle seemed to me a 
profitless degradation of a noble wild animal. 
Mr. Baynes’ team of six months’ old buffalo 
calves chafing in bits and harness strikes me in 
the same light and inspires the thought that I 
would about as lief have the picturesque old 
bison become extinct as to see them preserved 
for draft animals and circus-ring outfits. 
If the American Bison Society desires to win 
popular support, in my opinion, the fewer pic- 
tures that are circulated of its officers driving 
buffalo in harness the better. 
A. BRADSHAW, 
Fire Hunting Wildfowl. 
Jan. 17.—Editor -Forest and 
Stream: In the last number of Forest AND 
StrEAM I see Mr. O. D. Foulks, of Stockton, 
Md., speaks of the prevalence of night shooting 
there. I wish to say that last December I spent 
about ten days in Birdsnest, Va., on Broadwater 
Bay, and every night, just after sunset, and un- 
til quite late, we would hear the continuous fir- 
ing. At times the birds could be plainly heard 
flying around after the shooting. 
The men there said it was done all the time, 
and the wardens pay no attention to it. In fact, 
one warden told us he could do nothing. Cannot 
someting be done to stop this violation of the 
aws! 
Boston, Mass., 
