One of the most terrible and impressive experiences of my entire career
came to me very shortly after I had become well settled in the circus
harness. Sleep was the dragon which pursued me then with a relentless
and irresistible power. There was scarcely a moment when I was not
under its spell, at least to some degree. It was like a vampire that
took the zest and vitality out of my very life sources and I went about
almost as one walking in a dream. This condition arose from the fact
that under the best of weather luck, a showman's hours are very long.
But when roads were bad and journeys long, the poor wretch attached to
the old wagon show had practically no sleep at all. After a stretch of
hard traveling I was for weeks like a person drugged. My mind seemed in
a state of miserable torpor, while my body went about in a mechanical
way and did its work. The change from a regular life, which saw me
snugly in the same bed at nearly the same hour every night of the year,
to the painful excesses of a circus man's hours told on me very
severely and I was long in becoming acclimated.
At the painful period of which I speak my main object in life was to
sleep. For this I lived, and my idea of Paradise then was a
consciousness that I was in the act of falling asleep in bed with clean
sheets, and that I would not be awakened until the end of eternity
unless I should chance to get my sleep out before then--and this
possibility seemed deliciously remote.
While I suffered more keenly than the others from the tortures of
longing for sleep, all the men who had anything whatever to do with the
moving of the show were under the spell of this dragon. They, however,
rallied more quickly than I, when dry roads and good weather fell to
our lot for any length of time.
Well, weeks of terrible traveling, of getting lost, of fighting our way
through the mire and floods, was followed by a fortnight of fair
weather. My associates had "caught up" in the matter of sleep, but I
was still in a half torpid state and thought only of the blessed
privilege of closing my eyes for an hour or two at a stretch.
But, one morning as we started north from the small Missouri town in
which we had given a very successful performance, the scene was so
novel and impressive that I held out for a few minutes against the
demon that was pulling my eyelids together, and really aroused to the
picturesque features of the scene.
We were winding our way to the northward, our caravan being fully a
mile in length and stretched out like a long serpent. The elaborate and
gilded chariots, the piebald Arabian horses, the drove of shambling
camels and the huge swaying elephants gave a touch of genuine oriental
picturesqueness to the scene strangely out of keeping with the wild
western landscape and surroundings.
On every hand the prairies were carpeted with wild flowers in the
greatest variety and profusion. Their fragrance even reached me as I
stretched out at full length on the top of a lumbering chariot. The
almost endless vista of prairie, the serpent caravan, the gay colors
and the fragrance of the flowers all combined to refresh and impress
me, and to give me more cheer and courage than hours of sleep. The
pleasant picture haunted me after I closed my eyes and mixed in my
dreams after I dozed off into a half conscious slumber.
Later the lurch of the wagon aroused me, and I started up with a sense
of unaccountable alarm. The first object which met my eyes was a
jackrabbit, sitting on his haunches not more than two rods from the
trail we were following. Knowing the habitual timidity of these
creatures the boldness of this one surprised me greatly. He sat there
with his ears cocked straight up, his nose working nervously and his
heart pounding so heavily that its pulsations shook his gray sides. Not
until the wagon had passed did the rabbit stir. Then he dropped upon
all fours and vanished in a gray streak traveling in a line parallel
with the course of the caravan and keeping only a few rods from our
trail. While I was still pondering over the strange conduct of the
animal I saw a "rattler" emerge from the grass into the beaten trail
only a few feet in front of the "off leader" of our four-horse team.
Naturally I expected to see the snake coil and strike the horse, but he
did nothing of the kind--simply avoided the horse's hoofs and then
slipped away into the grass beyond. What was the meaning of the strange
spell which seemed suddenly to have taken possession of the wild
animals and reptiles of the plain through which we were traveling?
There was no escape from the conclusion that some peculiar influence
had seized upon them, blunting their ordinary sense of fear and
precaution. Had I been more accustomed to prairie life I would probably
have realized at once the nature of the trouble; like all of the men on
the wagon with me I was a rank tenderfoot.
In the course of the next ten minutes several flocks of birds passed
over us, flying low but very rapidly. The grass on both sides of the
trail seemed suddenly to swarm with animal life.
Before I had arrived at any conclusions regarding the peculiar actions
of the prairie creatures the captive animals in the darkened cages
began to show signs of unusual restlessness. The lions and tigers began
a strange moaning unlike their ordinary roars and growls. From the
monkey cages came plaintive, half-human cries. These sounds were taken
up by all the animals big and little. The elephants trumpeted, the
camels screamed, and every animal took part in the weird chorus, which
rapidly increased in volume. Then the air seemed to take on a hazy
appearance, particularly in the direction from which we had come.
Finally the truth dawned upon me--the prairie was on fire! By turning
backward and straining my eyes I fancied I could make out a cloud of
smoke far in the rear of the caravan. In a few moments this dim vision
became clear and tangible. I told my fears to the driver, who laughed
at me for my pains. Then I caught sight of a man on horseback on the
crest of rise in the prairie. He was riding towards us as fast as his
horse could carry him. Passing us like a whirlwind, he shouted: "Whip
up, man! The prairie's on fire! Move for the river straight ahead!" In
a second he was gone, shouting the same word to every startled driver
he passed. His approach had been noted by the boss, who was at the head
of the entire procession. That grand marshal of the day, for that was
substantially his position, came riding back to meet the courier.
Instantly, on learning the tidings, he wheeled about and rode like the
wind for the chariot in the lead, drawn by six splendid horses white as
milk.
Sharp orders emphasized by a liberal sprinkling of profanity were
sufficient to impress the driver of the magnificent leaders with the
awful gravity of the situation and with the fact that he must set the
pace for the remainder of the caravan. It might be thought that the
greatest drag on the speed of the terrified procession would have been
the camels and elephants. So thought the boss, but no sooner did the
driver of the elephants get into position on the back of old Romeo and
give that knowing creature an idea of what was expected, than he saw
his mistake.
The way in which both the elephants and camels swung themselves over
the ground was a revelation to all who saw them. Which was the more
pitiful and terrifying, the trumpeting of the elephants or the
squealing of the camels, was difficult to tell.
As the awful scroll of the fire rolled closer upon us the ungainly
bodies of the camels and elephants swayed from one side to the other
until they seemed fairly to vibrate.
"Where is the river? Are we nearing the stream? Can we make the water?"
These were the questions in the mind of every person in that long wagon
train. Sometimes they were yelled from one driver to another, but the
only answer was to lay the lash harder on the backs of the poor horses
pulling the heavy wagons and chariots--leaping and straining like so
many modern fire department animals responding to an alarm. It was a
genuine chariot race--in which the stake was life and the fine death by
flames. Nearly every vehicle was drawn by either four or six horses,
and the scene was one of the grandest and most terrible that human eye
ever looked upon.
Suddenly I saw the boss put his horse into its highest speed, leading
on ahead of the six whites. Then he leaped from the saddle, struck a
match to the grass, remounted and rode back a short distance. As each
team approached he ordered: "Wait till the flames spread a little and
then break through the line of the back fire I've started and form a
circle."
The grass which he had fired was considerably shorter than the general
growth of the prairies; then, the fire it made had not acquired the
volume, intensity and sweep of that hurricane of flame from which we
were fleeing. One after another of the teams reared, pitched and
plunged, only to find that the back fire had gone under their feet
leaving them inside a charred, blackened circle fringed with flame.
No sound I have ever heard approached in abject terror the awful
symphony of roars, growls, screams, wails and screeches that went up
from the maddened beasts in that caravan as the great sky-reaching
cylinder of flame and smoke rolled down upon us and was met barely
forty rods away by the rapidly spreading line of our own back fire.
Just as we were wondering if our next breath would be flame or air, the
leaders of the white chariot horses leaped into the air like rockets.
Instantly the whole six stallions became absolutely crazed with fear
and made a plunge directly for the oncoming storm of fire and smoke. On
toward the furnace of fire they ran, the driver tugging with might and
main on the reins.
"Jump!" yelled the boss. And jump the driver did. He was not a second
too soon, for an instant later the white charioteers had disappeared
under the great red and black barrel that was rolling upon us. Then
came a moment which was a dizzy blank to most of us, I guess. The
fearful strain of the long race, the moments of awful suspense after
the charred ground had been reached--it was enough to have dethroned
the reason of every man and woman in the charmed circle! Small wonder
that a few fainted dead away and the rest of us were stunned into
momentary confusion.
But we had scarcely recovered the use of our faculties when the wag of
the circus broke the long strain of the flight and escape by the
remark: "I reckon there's been more genuine praying done in circus
circles in the last hour than since Noah let the elephants out of the
Ark!" The truthfulness of the remark hit home to every one in the whole
group. Probably there was not a choicer collection of "unbelievers" on
the face of the civilized earth than our company contained--yet only a
few moments before every man, woman and child had been praying for dear
life--some fairly shouting their supplications, others kneeling quietly
in the wagons, and still others mumbling their petitions as they helped
to hold the horses in check or performed some other imperative duty.
But there was not a single individual in the whole wagon train who had
not, under the awful pressure of the trial through which we passed, put
up some kind of a petition to the Almighty for deliverance from the
devouring flames.
One of the first things we did, when the burning ground became cool
enough, after the tornado of fire had swept around our little oasis of
burned ground and passed on towards the river, was to go out and look
for the remains of the chariot and the six white stallions. We had not
far to go before we came to a heap of wheel tires and other ironwork
from the big vehicle. A little beyond it were the blackened remains of
the splendid horses which had dashed into an unnecessary death. These
animals had been the pride of the show, and there was scarcely a man
connected with the equestrian department of the circus who did not
deeply lament the loss of the noble creatures. As for myself, I could
hardly keep back the tears, for my fondness for the beautiful,
intelligent horses amounted to a passion.
Slowly we made our way to the river. On the other bank were gathered
the inhabitants of the prairies who had been fortunate enough to reach
this refuge. They had immediately extinguished the fires started on the
far side of the river by the sparks which the wind carried across the
stream. Some of them were almost raving with grief over the fate which
they firmly believed had overtaken their relatives and friends, while
others put their whole energies into caring for all who needed
help--thus forgetting their own distress and afflictions in ministering
to others.