e is no outlet from this spot, without crossing a belt of fire. Look
for yourselves, my men; look for yourselves; if you can find a single
opening, I will engage to follow."

The examination, which his companions so instantly and so intently
made, rather served to assure them of their desperate situation, than
to appease their fears. Huge columns of smoke were rolling up from the
plain, and thickening in gloomy masses around the horizon. The red glow,
which gleamed upon their enormous folds, now lighting their volumes with
the glare of the conflagration, and now flashing to another point, as
the flame beneath glided ahead, leaving all behind enveloped in awful
darkness, and proclaiming louder than words the character of the
imminent and approaching danger.

"This is terrible!" exclaimed Middleton, folding the trembling Inez to
his heart. "At such a time as this, and in such a manner!"

"The gates of Heaven are open to all who truly believe," murmured the
pious devotee in his bosom.

"This resignation is maddening! But we are men, and will make a struggle
for our lives! how now, my brave and spirited friend, shall we yet mount
and push across the flames, or shall we stand here, and see those we
most love perish in this frightful manner, without an effort?"

"I am for a swarming time, and a flight before the hive is too hot to
hold us," said the bee-hunter, to whom it will be at once seen that
Middleton addressed himself. "Come, old trapper, you must acknowledge
this is but a slow way of getting out of danger. If we tarry here much
longer, it will be in the fashion that the bees lie around the straw
after the hive has been smoked for its honey. You may hear the fire
begin to roar already, and I know by experience, that when the flame
once gets fairly into the prairie grass, it is no sloth that can outrun
it."

"Think you," returned the old man, pointing scornfully at the mazes of
the dry and matted grass which environed them, "that mortal feet can
outstrip the speed of fire, on such a path! If I only knew now on which
side these miscreants lay!"

"What say you, friend Doctor," cried the bewildered Paul, turning to
the naturalist with that sort of helplessness with which the strong are
often apt to seek aid of the weak, when human power is baffled by the
hand of a mightier being, "what say you; have you no advice to give
away, in a case of life and death?"

The naturalist stood, tablets in hand, looking at the awf