Maumee Express

A PRAIRIE ON FIRE.

Leaving the scene of my extreme rambles in the Far West, I proceeded over a beautiful rolling country designated on the maps as "Coteau Des Prairie," a ridge about 100 feet above the River St. Peters, and reached this place the American Fur Company's old trading post.

We have met with several adventures and among the rest came near being roasted alive in a Prairie fire. I have to describe to you. Pliny did not die more gloriously in the crater of Vesuvius, than your humble servant might have done in the Prairie Fire! It is worth travelling ten thousand miles to be an actor in a scene so sublime.

About an hour before sunset we spied a cloud of vapor in the direction we were travelling rising gradually from the earth, and spreading itself to the right and left as far as the eye could reach. It resembled at first a fog I have seen rise from the great waste, the Pontine marshes, and pass over the Mediterranean in bright columns of a feathery form, until it was lost in a higher altitude of light. After half an hour's progress it acquired a greater density, and like a London smoke, extended itself over the whole heavens. Suddenly, the sun which had partially illuminated the sky, sank below the horizon over the Rolling Prairie country, in which we were travelling: and all the light became instantaneously transferred to the east, in these clouds which became brighter and were driving before the wind towards us.

Until then I regarded it as a phenomenon of the atmosphere, but the glare of light increased fast the air became heated and suffocating, as the wind bore it directly upon us. The Indians, who were far in advance, fell back and announced the Prairie on fire and, that it was fast approaching us. At first there was a general consternation among the whole party. I was alarmed and demanded of an Indian who spoke a few words of Canada French, what was to be done. Our pioneer, the old chief Whirling Thunder, gave instant orders for the whole company to form a line, which every one obeyed, galloping away to the right and left, and dismounting some ten or fifteen rods apart. In five minutes every one had struck a fire, and applied a torch to the tall grass of the Prairie, which was soon borne before the wind with terrific fury in the direction we had come from, snapping and flying into the air like small rockets. The glare and heat of the fire advancing in the other direction increased every moment; our horses became restive, snorting and exhibiting the greatest terror, as it came cracking and streaming in the air before the wind, which had increased to a perfect hurricane.

At this moment the fire we had kindled advanced slowly against the wind, and from which we were retreating to avoid flames and heat. The Prairie over which we had passed being but a sheet of flames gradually diminishing however in brightness. Here we were between two fires, and both advancing towards us, though that against the wind was slower and less intense, but both extending to the right and left to an immense distance. The one before the wind we since ascertained to have been about 42 miles wide, & to have run a distance of 170 miles, crossing the streams by the force of the wind. This scene, in connexion with the perilous situation in which we were placed, was grand beyond the power of description. Thousands of buffalo, and deer and wild fowl were bounding and flying in every direction around us, which added to the noise of the elements, sounded like the clashing encounter of hostile armies.

I have stood within the convulsive crater of Vesuvius during a night eruption, and seen a thousand travellers and visitors flying with lighted torches gleaming in the distance, before the fiery waves of a torrent of lava. I have seen the deep flood of the Niagara leap from its rocky height into the foaming abyss below; and the rushing avalanche tumble from the glaciers of the Alps, carrying desolation and dismay to the inhabitants of the valleys below—but to witness a vast prairie in the far, far west on fire, is a scene more grand and thrilling:

Tis vain to draw a picture of this night on the prairie, when earth and air were one complete blaze of light; a perfect whirlwind of fire and flames, and the wild beasts were driven en masse from their hiding places.

The heat becoming intense, the old chief gave the signal for retreat, by a wild whoop, which was echoed by the whole of the Indians, though half was lost amid the noise of the elements. It was instantly obeyed by all, forcing with much difficulty our horses through the conflagration we had kindled, and continuing to ride for about three miles at full speed, until we reached a high ridge where the grass had been light, and was soon consumed, in other places it was often from four to ten feet in height. midst clouds of smoke, nearly suffocating and which rose so thick as to shut out the glorious scene we had witnessed, and how much romance to be between two fires, than cast among the embers of one.

The following morning, when the party were all mounted on our single horses, with smoky faces, dresses and blankets, there being but a shade of difference in the complexion between the white and red man, I could but laugh heartily at the exhibition as we galloped off in Indian file.

Never was a party better dressed to a carnival masquerade. There was something wild, a picturesque beauty in such images as we were, under the smoky disguise, for the two first days, particularly while travelling over this wide desolation. There was a particular adaptation of looks to the brown burnt sod on our trail. This fire had swept through forest and field, consuming the young trees, and the few autumnal flowers, which now studded the prairies; I felt satisfied that we owed our lives to the resolution and coolness of the old chief, for I should certainly have been buried to a modern mummy, had I not been rescued by the foresight of "Old Whirling Thunder."

J. H. B.