The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1879-12-25
A Prairie Fire.


Next to calamitics like that the home
steadcr's wife told of, the great besetting
fear of the settlers on the border-in all
the new and thinly pcopled portions of
Kansas in facts the coming OF the
autumn prairie fire, which so frequently
meanaccs their stacks and cribs, their
helpless stock, their stables and cabins,
and even their lives. Were it not for
its known danger and power of havoc,
this tempest and scourge of fire would
be a spectacle o. commanding force and
beauty. First, you will catch glimpse
of what you take to be gray wisps OF
haze away off on the horizon; and watch
ing, you will see these vagrant particles
deepen gradually, and gather into de-
finite volume of smoke. black like a
rain-cloud, and bronze about the edges.
Then the strange, sonlber bulk starts
forward across the prairie, and you hold
your breath at the sight of she rapid
progress Of it. CA mile in two minutes
is not an exceptional rate of speed for a
fire once fairly under way.) 1t halts an
instant, you note, over q broad swa!e
where there is standing water; but it is
for an instant only. The next moment it
reaches the upland again and the dry
grass; and directly it grasps a belt OF
tall, thick blue.stem, and the flame leaps
suddenly and madly out above the
smoke, then subsidies again, and the
black mass grows blacller than ever, and
rolls higher and higher, and you can
scent the burning grass, and hear the
distant roar of the fire-an awful roar,
resembling the sound of artillery In
heavy timber. And ii is so cal II ippe-
diately around you that you do not SO
much as miss the ticking of your watch
in yourpecket; there il no breath OF air
stirring, and the sun is shining, and the
heavens above you are, blue and placid.
But the stiffness will be broken soon.
The oncoming cloud is; only a few miles
away now, and you can easily trace the
scarlet and terrific energy at its base;
the smoke begins to hurt your eyes, too;
and the heat becomes teayiy oppressive.
And then, all at once, the wind 'smites
and staggers you, that appalling roar
deafens you, and the sun is blotted out,
and you are in q darkness as OF . mid
night without moon or star. 1t is an e1-
perience of but a dozen seconds or 50,
this sudden plunge into darkness, though
it seems an hour, and when you look out
again, you find that the fire has passed
you mile or more to your right and
still rolling desperately onward; and
there in. its track are charred and snhold.
ering stacks of hay, and an occasional
house aAame and tottering to its fall,
and a group of men snd boys beating
back the outer line of tue fire with brush
and old clothes, and sending forward
little counter.fres to meet it and if pos
sibie to keep it at safe distance. The
creek may stop it and smotherit when it
gets there, though such hope has mere
chance for warrant; sometimes these
mighty confagrations vault across
streams twenty ,or.thiriy yards in width,
so swift and fesistless ii the momentum;
and as rule they are efectually stayed
only when they reach a vide extent OF
plowed land, and have to yield, sullenly,
for lack-of anything more to feed theil
,inexorable fury.