In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 37

The pupils went to the verge of the trees, and watched the billowy columns of smoke in the distance.

The world seemed to change. The air filled with flocks of frightened birds. The sky became veiled, and the sun was as red as blood.

Since the great snow of 1830 but few buffaloes had been seen on the prairie. But a dark cloud of flesh came bounding over the prairie gra.s.s, bellowing, with low heads and erect tails. The children thought that they were cattle at first, but they were buffaloes. They rushed toward the trees of Prairie Island, turned, and looked behind. Then the leader pawed the earth, and the herd rushed on toward the north.

The fire spread in a semicircle, and seemed to create a wind which impelled it on with resistless fury.

"O-o-oh, look! look!" exclaimed another scholar. "See the horses and the cattle--droves of them! Look at the sky--see the birds!"

There were droves of cattle hurrying in every direction. The men in the fields near Prairie Island came hurrying home.

"The prairie is on fire!" said each one, not knowing what else to say.

"Will it reach us?" asked Jasper of the harvesters.

"What is to hinder it? The wind is driving it this way. It has formed a wall of fire that almost surrounds us."

"What can we do?" asked Jasper. The harvesters considered.

"We are safer here than elsewhere, let what will come," said one. "If the fire sweeps the prairie, it would overtake us before we could get to any great river, and the small creeks are dry."

The afternoon grew darker and darker. The sun went out; under the black smoke rolled a red sea whose waves grew nearer and nearer. The children began to cry and the women to pray. An old man came hobbling out to the arch of the trees.

"I foretold it," said he. "The world is on fire. The Day of Judgment has come! A time and times time, and a half."

He had been a Millerite.

"It will be here in an hour," said a harvester.

But there arose a counter-wind. The wall of fire seemed to be stayed.

The smoke columns rose to the heavens like Babel towers.

Afar, families were seen fleeing on horseback toward the bed of a creek which they hoped to find flowing, but which had run dry.

"This is awful!" said Jasper. "It looks as though the heavens were in flames."

He shaded his hands and looked into the open s.p.a.ce.

"What is that?" he asked.

A black horse came running toward the island, bounding through the gra.s.s as though impelled by spurs. As he leered, Jasper saw the form of a human being stretched at his side. Was the form an Indian?

On came the horse. He leered again, exposing to view a yellow body and a plumed head.

"It's an Indian," said Jasper.

The fire flattened and darkened for a time, and then rolled on again.

Animals were fleeing everywhere, plunging and bellowing, and the air was wild and tempestuous with the cries of birds. The little animals could be seen leaping out of the prairie gra.s.s. The earth, air, and sky seemed alive with terror.

The black horse came plunging toward the island.

"How can a horse run that way and live?" asked Jasper. "He is bearing a messenger. It is friendly or hostile Indian that is clinging to his side."

Jasper bent his eyes on the plunging animal to see him leer, for whenever the sidling motion was made it brought to view the tawny horizontal form that seemed to be clinging to the bridle, as if riding for life. Suddenly there arose a cry from the islanders:

"Look! look! Who has done it? There is a counter-fire ahead. _They_ will all perish!"

A mile or more in front of the island, and in the opposite direction from the other fire, another great billow of smoke arose spirally into the air. The people and animals who had been fleeing toward the creek, which they thought contained water, but which was dry, all turned and came running toward the island grove. Even the birds came beating back.

"_That_ fire was set by the Indians," said the harvesters. "It is started across the track of the other fire to destroy us all. An Indian set the fires."

"That is an Indian skirting around us on the back of a horse," said another. "He is holding on to the horse by the mane with his hands, and by the flanks with his feet. The Indians have done this!"

"The other fire will run back, though against the wind. The prairie is so dry that the fire will run everywhere. We must set a counter-fire."

"Set a counter-fire!" exclaimed many voices.

The purpose of the counter-fire was to destroy the dry gra.s.s, so that when the other fires should reach the place it would find nothing to burn.

"But the people!" said Jasper. "See them! They are hurrying here; a counter-fire would drive them away!"

An awful scene followed. Horses, cattle, animals of many kinds came panting to the island. Many of them had been fleeing for miles, and sank down under the trees as if ready to perish. There was one enormous bison among them. The tops of the trees were filled with birds, cawing and uttering a chaos of cries. The air seemed to rain birds, and the earth to pour forth animals. The sky above turned to inky blackness. Men, women, and children came rushing into the trees from every direction, some crying on Heaven for mercy, some begging for water, all of them exhausted and seemingly ready to die. The island grove was like a great funeral pyre.

Jasper lifted his hands and called the school and the people around him, knelt down, and prayed for help amid the cries of distress that rose on every hand. He then looked for the black horse and the plumed rider again.

They were drawing near in the darkening air. The figure of the rider was more distinct. The people saw it, and cried, "An Indian!" Some said, "It is a scout!" and others, "It is he who set the fire!"

The wind rose and changed, caused by the heated air in the distance. The currents ran hither and thither like drafts in a room of open doors. One of these unnatural drafts caused a new terror to spread among the people and animals and birds. It drew up into the air a great column of sparks and, scattered them through the open s.p.a.ce, and a rain of fire filled the sky and descended upon the grove.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE APPROACH OF THE MYSTERIOUS INDIAN.]

It was a splendid but terrible sight.

"The end of all things is at hand," said the old Millerite. "The stars are beginning to fall."

But the rain of fire lost its force as it neared the earth, and it fell in cinders and ashes.

"An Indian! an Indian!" cried many voices.

The black horse came plunging into near view, and rushed for the trees and sank down with foaming sides and mouth. The people shouted. There rolled from his side the lithe and supple form of a young Indian, plumed, and dressed in yellow buckskin. What did it mean? The Indian lay on the ground like one dead. The people gathered around him, and Jasper came to him and bent over him, and parted the black hair from his face.

Suddenly Jasper started back and uttered a cry.

"What is it?" asked the people.

"It is my old Indian guide--it is Waubeno. Bring him water, and we will revive him, and he will tell us what to do.--Waubeno! Waubeno!"

The Indian seemed to know that voice. He revived, and looked around him, and stared at the people.