to worry, though; the nearest water was at the
river, and it would have been certain death to have attempted to go
there unless the savages cleared out, and from all appearances they had
no idea of doing that.

What gave the trappers more cause for alarm than anything else, was
the fear that the Indians would fire the prairie in the morning, and
endeavour to smoke them out or burn them up. The grass was in just the
condition to make a lively blaze, and they might escape the flames, and
then they might not. It can well be imagined how eagerly they watched
for the dawn of another day, perhaps the last for them.

The first gray streaks of light had hardly peeped above the horizon,
when, with an infernal yell, the Indians broke for the rock, and the
trappers were certain that some new project had entered their heads. The
wind was springing up pretty freshly, and nature seemed to conspire with
the red devils, if they really meant to burn the trappers out; and from
the movements of the savages, that was what they expected. The Indians
kept at a respectful distance from the range of the trappers' rifles,
who chafed because they could not stop some of the infernal yelling with
a few well-directed bullets, but they had to choke their rage, and
watch events closely. During a temporary lull in hostilities, one of the
trappers took occasion to crawl down to where the mules were, and shift
them to the west side of the rock, where the wall was the highest; so
that the flame and smoke might possibly pass by them without so much
danger as where they were picketed before. He had just succeeded in
doing this, and, tearing up the long grass for several yards around the
animals, was in the act of going back, when his partner yelled out to
him: "Look out! D---n 'em, they've fired the prairie!" He was back on
the top of the rock in another moment, and took in at a glance what was
coming.

The spectacle for a short interval was indescribably grand; the sun was
shining with all the power of its rays on the huge clouds of smoke as
they rolled down from the north, tinting them a glorious crimson.
The two trappers had barely time to get under the shelter of a large
projecting point of the rocky wall, when the wind and smoke swept down
to the ground, and instantly they were enveloped in the darkness of
midnight. They could not discern a single object; neither Indians,
horses, the prairie, nor the sun; and what a terrible wind!

The trappers s