Year: 1879

In an article entitled ''Some Features
Of Kansas Farming" in Scribner for No
vember. Mr.. Henry King gives the fol
lowing vivid description of thai beauti-
fui scourge,-a fire on the prairies:


Next to calaruities like that the home
steader's wife told OF the great besetting
fear of the settlers on the border-in al
The new and thinly peopled portions OF
Kansas, in fact-is the coming of the
autumn prairie fire, which so frequently
mepaces their stacks and cribs, theil
helpless stock, their stables and cabins,
aud even their lives. Were it not for its
known danger and power of havoc, this
tempest aud scourge Of fire would be
spectacle of commanding force and beau
ty. First, you will catch ghmpses of
away of on the horizon; and watching,
you will see these Yagrant PARTICLES deep
en gradually, and gather into defiate


volume of smoke, black like rain cloud,
and bronze about the edges. Then the
strange, somber bulk starts forward
across the prairie, and you hold your


breath at sight of the rapid progress OF
it. q mile in two minutes is not an
exceptional rate OF speed for fire once


fairly under way.) 1t halts an instant,


you note, over broad swale where there
Is standing water: but Ii is for an instant
only. The next moment it reaches the
upland again and the dry grass; and d.
rectly it grasps belt OF the tail, thick
blue-stem, and the flame leaps suddenly
and madly out above the smoke, then


subsidies again, and the black mass grows


blacker than ever, and rolls higher ana


higher, and you can scent the burning


grass, and hear the distant roar of the


ire-an awful roar, resembling the


sound of artillery in heavy timber. And


it is so calm Immediately about you that


you do not so much as miss the ticking


of your watch in your pocket; there is


no breath of air stirring, and the sun


is shining, and the heavens above you


are blue and placid. But the stiffness


VIII be broken soon. The oncoming


cloud is only few miles away now, and


you easily trace the scarlet and terrific
energy at its base; the smoke begins to


hurt your eyes, too, and the heat be


comes heavily oppressive. And then all


at once, the wind smitcs and staggers


yoI, that appalling roar deafens Ton,


and the sun is blotted out, and you are


in a darkness as of a midnight without
n-oel or star. 1t is an experience Of


but dozen seconds or so, this sudden


plange into darkness, though it seems
an hour, and when you look out again,


you find that the fire has passed you a


mile or more to your right, and is still


rolling desperately onward and there III


its track are charred and smouldering


stacks of hay. an occasional house afame
and tottering to its fall, and Il group OF
men and boys beating back the outer


line of the fire with brush and old
clothes, and sending forward little coun


ter fires to meet it and if possible keep


it at safe distance. The creek may
stop it and smother it when it gets there,


though such hope has mere chance for


a warrant; sometimes these mighty con-


flagrations vault across streams twenty


or thirty yards in width, SO swift and


resistless is their momentum; and as a


rule they are effectually stayed only


when they reach wide extent of plowed


land, and have to yield sullenly, for lack


of anything more TO feed their inexorable