The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-22
RACING WITH FIRE.

The train was crossing a vast prai- rie. The single line of rails ran as sraight as if it had been drawn with a rule from one horizon to another. On each side the coarse grass, green, with the tint of spring, waved breast high. There was no sound except the mono- tonous beat of the wheels as they passed from one rail to the next, and the steady swish of the grass as it bent before th.a rushing wind of the train.
 I was sitting on the platform of the observation car with half dozen other passengers. The conversation fell upon prairie fires, and eaih man had his say
 .'It was along in 1874 when this road was building and I was one of the en- gineer's assistants" spoke up griz- zled, hard-featured man who had taken but little part in the conversation. "We began at the western end, down by Bucephalus, and we laid out about forty miles of track right across the prairie, and had git to within, say ten miles from where we are at this identi- cal mnute It was an easy job, for we just laid the sleepers down on the ground and spiked the rails to them, | tcalculating to ballast the track when | we got good and ready. l had big gang of Irishmen under me, and we used to average a mile day of track laying. One July we had strike among the laborers and all hands quit work. I was down at Bucephalus at the time, and the chief engineer asked me to take a locomotive over the line and see if the strikers had done any damage before they left us.
 T started out in the morning with nobody except the engineer in charge of the locomotive, agreeing to take turns with him shoveling coal and watching the engine. We came aong slow and easy, for the track was too rough for fast running and about noon we got to where we ended. There were no signs that the strikers had 1lneddled with the track, and as it was a pretty hot day, Sam and I, after we had our lunch, lay down alongside of the engine in the l shade of the cab and took a nap.
 T woke up little before two o'clock and as I was filling a pipe and making ' for home big wolf bolted out from the high grass and ran across the track, noi two yards from us. His tail was be- tween his legs ans the foam was drip png from his mouth, and he was mak ing about as good time as wolf ever made before or since. He never SC much as looked at us, and when he had vanished I called Sam and told him lhad seen mad wolf; while Twas speak ing about a dozen prairie dogs rushed past us, and then there came another wolf and a couple of bears. All of then were doing their level best, and they paid no more attention to us than if W, had been a couple of corpses.
 "'What on earth is the meaning o1 this circus?' says I. Are those animal just racing for the championship, or i there something after them?'
 Sam didn't answer, but I saw tha he looked scared. He sprung up, ant climbing on his engine looked over tn, prairie to the eastward. Then he rar out to me to get into the cab quicke than lightning and started to open tn
 draft and set the fires blazing.
 "'What is it I began to ask as
 climbed into the cab. But didn't neet to finish my question. I could see fo
 myself what was the matter. Tn
 whole prairie east of us as far as
 could see was in @ blaze, and as ther
 had been 8 strong east wind all day and. the fire wasn't more than three O four miles away, I calculated it would
 ge down on us in very few minutes.
 ""Hadn't we better start fire an
 burn some of this grass off before tn
 fire gets here?" I askel Sam. You sec
 I had read bout this way of stoppin a prairie fire, and knowing that San
 had been born and bred on the prairie
 calculated he would know all abou it, - ~*- ,...---.