THE PRAIRIE FIRE
The prairies were brown--a dead, crisp brown, as if they had been baked
by hot suns through long, rainless days and nipped by a whole winter of
killing frosts.
"I don't understand why the grass is so dry by the middle of November,"
said Dr. Morton. "Of course the summer was pretty dry, but then we had
rains in September."
"Yes, Father," Frank replied, "but there has been less rainfall for the
past two years than Kansas has known for a decade. I imagine the ground
is baked underneath on the prairies, and the rains only helped for a
time."
"Well, whatever caused it, we shall have to feed earlier than usual. I
am afraid we may have some bad fires, too, if we don't have rain or a
snowfall soon."
"There was a fire over on Elm Creek night before last," spoke up Sherm.
"Grant Stowe's cousin was telling us about it at school."
"I saw smoke off to the north yesterday," said Chicken Little.
"Oh, I hope we sha'n't have any bad fires this fall!" exclaimed Mrs.
Morton. "I do think a big prairie fire is one of the most terrifying
sights, especially at night. I couldn't sleep that first fall for
dreading them. I used to get up in the middle of the night and look out
the windows to see if that awful glare was anywhere on the horizon."
"Don't go borrowing trouble, Mother. There hasn't been a bad fire on Big
John for years. The country is so thickly settled a fire doesn't have
the sweep it used to." Dr. Morton tried to reassure her.
"They must be wonderful things to see. I hope there won't be any bad
ones, but if one shows up anywhere within ten miles, I propose to be on
hand," Sherm said eagerly.
"You won't be so keen after you have fought one or two, Sherm." Frank
smiled with the wisdom of the initiated. "Say, Father, I think Jim and I
had better fire round those stacks on the north eighty. It would be hard
to save them if a fire got started on the divide."
"Yes, I don't know but you'd best do it this afternoon. Burn a pretty
wide strip. And we ought to run a guard on the west from that field of
winter wheat to the county road. If a fire ever got in there, it might
come down on the house."
Chicken Little spoke up. "May I go, too, Frank? I love to watch you."
"You will be in school, but you can come home that way if we are still
at work. You can easily see the smoke. We won't try it if the wind
rises, and I believe it is going to."
"Chicken Little, if you see the smoke you may tell Mr. Clay I won't come
for my recitation this afternoon. I am going to find out how this
back-firing business is done."
Sherm had begun his studies some two weeks previous and was making rapid
progress, studying evenings, and going to the school a half hour before
closing time to recite.
Chicken Little found this arrangement extremely pleasant, because Sherm
was always there to walk home with her. They took all sorts of detours
and by-paths through the woods, instead of coming along the road to the
ford. They discovered unexpected stores of walnuts and acorns and wild
rose hips, and scarlet bitter-sweet just opening its gorgeous berries
after the first hard frosts.
Jane helped Sherm press autumn leaves and pack a huge box of nuts to
send home. His mother wrote back that his father hadn't showed as much
interest in anything for weeks, as he did in the nuts. They seemed to
carry him back to his own boyhood.
Mr. Dart seldom left his bed now, and Sherm's mother told but little of
his condition. Sherm understood her silence only too well. Chicken
Little noticed that he always worked hard and late the days he heard
from home. She began to watch for the letters herself, and to mount
guard over the boy when he looked specially downcast, teasing him into
going for a gallop or wheedling him into making taffy or playing a game
of checkers. She got so she recognized Sherm's blue devils as far off as
she could see him.
Sherm did not notice this for some time or suspect she was looking after
him, but one day he remarked carelessly when she thought she had been
specially clever:
"Chicken Little, don't make a mollycoddle of me. A man has to learn to
take what comes his way without squealing."
"Yes, Sherm, but if you get thorns in your hand, it's better to try to
pull them out than to go on pushing them in deeper, isn't it? I know
when I was a kid, it always helped a lot to have Mother kiss it better."
"How'd you get so wise, Chicken Little?" The lad smiled his wry smile.
"Don't make fun of me, please, Sherm."
"Make fun of you? Lady Jane, I've been taking off my hat to you for a
week. How in the dickens you girls find out exactly what's going on
inside a chap beats my time. It's mighty good of you to put up with my
glooming and try to cheer me along. Maybe I don't look grateful, but I
am." Sherm was eager to make this acknowledgment, but found it more
trying than he had anticipated. He revenged himself by starting in to
tease.
"Say, I wish you'd try your hand at this splinter--I can't budge the
critter."
Jane flew for a needle, unsuspecting. The splinter didn't look serious,
but she painstakingly dug it out.
"Is that all right?" she demanded, looking up to encounter a wicked
glint in Sherm's gray eyes.
"Hm-n, aren't you going to put any medicine on it?"
"Medicine?"
"Well, you know you said it helped." Sherm was grinning impishly.
"Sherman Dart, I think you're too mean for words!" She was about to turn
away affronted when she had an inspiration.
"Mother," she called, "O Mother!"
Mrs. Morton had been placidly sewing in the sitting room while the young
people were studying their lessons by the dining-room table. She came to
the door, inquiring.
"Mother, Sherm's had a splinter in his finger and he wants you to kiss
it better."
Sherm started to protest, but Mrs. Morton did not stop to listen.
"Jane, I think that kind of a joke is very ill-timed, making your poor
mother get up and come to you for nothing. You must remember I am not as
young as I once was."
Mrs. Morton departed with dignity.
"Now will you be good?" chuckled Sherm.
"Oh, I guess I'm square," Chicken Little retorted, going back to her
lessons.
Mrs. Morton had said truly that she was not so young as formerly. She
had not been well all fall. Dr. Morton had persuaded her to see another
physician, who, having assured her that she was merely run down, had
prescribed the usual tonic. He had told Dr. Morton, however, that her
heart action was weak and warned him to guard her against shocks of any
kind and to have her rest as much as possible. This had agreed with the
doctor's own diagnosis of her condition, and the family had been trying
to save her from all exertion. So Chicken Little was a tiny bit
conscience-stricken.
High winds and more pressing farm duties had interfered with running the
fire guards. It was not until the week before Thanksgiving that the men
got at it, then they succeeded only in protecting the stacks. They had
intended to finish the job the following morning, but one of the
neighbors, passing through the lane, stopped to tell Dr. Morton of a
sale of yearlings to be held the next afternoon in the neighboring
county.
"It must be part of the Elliott herd. They're three-quarters bred
shorthorn; I'd like mighty well to pick up a bunch of them. We have
plenty of feed for any ordinary winter." Dr. Morton was talking the
matter over with Frank after supper.
"Suppose we ride over, Father, it's only about twenty miles. We can
start early--we don't need to buy unless they are actually a bargain."
They were off at six the following morning, planning to return the same
day. Dr. Morton, however, warned his wife not to be anxious if she did
not see them before the next afternoon. If they bought the steers, they
would not try to drive them home the same day.
The morning was bright and pleasant, but the wind rose toward mid-day
and was blowing a young gale by the time Chicken Little returned from
school at half-past four. Mrs. Morton began worrying lest the doctor and
Frank had not wrapped up sufficiently.
"Why, it isn't cold yet, Mrs. Morton. In fact, it is astonishingly warm
for November. And there's the queerest, yellowish haze I have ever
seen." Sherm said this to reassure her.
"Probably dust," replied Mrs. Morton carelessly, relieved from her
anxiety about her family.
Chicken Little hurried through her supper and went over to see Marian.
Presently Marian threw a shawl over her head and they both climbed the
hill back of the house. The wind was still blowing fiercely. Sherm saw
them on the ridge and followed to see what was tempting them to a stroll
on such a night.
"What's up?"
Marian answered. "Why, Jane thinks all this yellow haze comes from a
prairie fire. We've been trying to see if we could see any trace of it.
It seems to me I do smell smoke--there's a kind of pungent tang to the
air, too." Marian sniffed uneasily.
"Like burning grass or leaves?"
Marian's face paled. "Sherm, that's exactly what it is! What can we do?
And the menfolks all away except Jim Bart, and he's gone to Benton's on
an errand. He'll be back in a few minutes though."
"Don't worry, Marian," said Jane, "if it's a prairie fire it's miles and
miles off. It must be on the other side of Little John. It can never
cross the creek--besides, the wind is blowing the wrong way for it to
sweep down on us."
"That's so--but the wind might change any minute, and in a gale like
this I'm not so sure it might not jump Little John. I do wish Frank had
finished that back-firing."
"I suppose it wouldn't be possible to do it until the wind lulls, but
Mrs. Morton, I'll sit up and watch to-night--at least until the wind
goes down. It often falls about midnight," said Sherm, looking troubled.
"It looks to me as if we were in for a three-days' blow," Marian replied
despondently. "But I'd be much obliged if you would, Sherm, I don't
quite like to ask Jim Bart to, for he's had such a hard day. Do you
think you can keep awake? And, Chicken Little, don't let on to
Mother--we mustn't worry her."
"Sherm," said Jane, after they went into the house, "I'm going to stay
up, too; I'll slip down again after Mother goes to bed. It's a lot
easier for two people to keep awake than one."
"No, Chicken Little, I don't believe you'd better. Your mother wouldn't
like it. And we'd be dead sure to laugh or talk loud enough for her to
hear us. I hope the wind will go down early. If it doesn't and I find I
can't stay awake, I'll call you and let you watch while I doze on the
couch here."
Jane stayed up as late as her mother would let her, and Sherm made the
excuse of having special studying to do, to sit up later. After Mrs.
Morton had retired he made frequent excursions to the hill top. A lurid
glare lit up the horizon to the northwest. He could still catch the tang
of smoke and whiffs of burning grass, but these were not so pungent as
earlier in the evening. The fire seemed farther away. By eleven, the
glare was decidedly fainter and the wind had subsided noticeably. At
twelve, he concluded it was safe to go to bed.
Chicken Little waking about two, stole down stairs and finding
everything dark, made the rounds of the windows, but the distant fire
showed only a faint glow in the night.
When they arose the next morning there was no trace of the fire to be
seen. Sherm hailed some men passing, for news. They reported that it had
swept the north side of Elm Creek and said it had burned up a lot of
hay. There was a rumor that two of the upland farmers had lost
everything they had and that a man and team had been caught in it. But
they hadn't been able to get any details.
"Though it wouldn't be surprising," one of the strangers added, "that
fire was traveling faster than any horse could run."
Chicken Little had come out and was standing beside Sherm. Her eyes grew
big. "Do they really think somebody got burned?"
One of the men nudged the man who had spoken.
"No, Sis, it was just a rumor--I don't 'low it was true. When folks
can't give you any name or place--it most generally ain't so."
The men drove on.
It was Saturday. Jim Bart had gone down to town for the weekly supplies
and Sherm was busy with odd jobs. He asked Jane to go up to the hill top
occasionally to make sure there were no fresh signs of the fire, though
Jim Bart had assured him the danger was over. Sherm noticed that the
wind had changed. It was blowing freshly from the very direction where
they had seen the fire the preceding night.
Chicken Little obediently made trips once an hour until noon; she could
detect nothing to occasion alarm. After dinner her mother set her to
making doughnuts and she forgot all about it.
Mrs. Morton was not so well to-day and Jane persuaded her to go to bed.
Drawing the blinds to, she put a hot iron to her mother's feet and left
her to sleep. The clock striking four attracted Jane's attention as she
came back into the sitting room, the last doughnut was draining in the
collender while Annie mopped the kitchen floor.
She stood irresolute for an instant, undecided whether to read or to
fetch some walnuts from the smokehouse for Sunday. Dr. Morton always
liked to have a basket of walnuts handy on Sunday afternoons. "I guess
I'll get the nuts, and perhaps I'd better run up the hill to be sure
that old fire hasn't had a change of heart. Father says often some
little side fire smolders and burns after the main fire is all out.
Though I guess one would have showed up long before this if there'd been
any this time."
She argued with herself for two or three minutes, finally deciding that
it wasn't much trouble to go take a look, even if it were foolish. Just
outside the door she met Sherm and he walked up to the crest with her.
Half way up the slope Chicken Little suddenly stopped, sniffing
suspiciously. "Sherm, I believe I smell smoke again."
Sherm stopped also to draw in a long breath. He did not wait to announce
his observations, but broke into a run for the top of the hill. Chicken
Little followed him a length in the rear. Sherm took one look and gave
vent to a surprised whistle. Chicken Little stared, fascinated, at a
tiny line of fire burning merrily on a hillside not a mile distant.
"Jumping Jehosophat!" exclaimed Sherm, "how did it ever creep up on us
this way?"
Jane was thinking rapidly. She scarcely noticed what he said.
"Sherm, Frank left the water barrels and the mops and everything on the
wagon, didn't he?"
"Yes--what----"
"Are the barrels filled?"
"Yep, do you think----"
"Sherm, run hitch the bay team to the wagon quick. I'll get Marian and
warn Annie not to tell Mother--she's asleep still. Hurry, Sherm, every
minute's precious!"
Sherm's "All right" drifted from him on the run. He was already on his
way to the stable. He realized that Jane knew more about fire fighting
than he did.
Jane hurried to the cottage. Marian listened to her news, white to the
lips.
"Annie can take Jilly. Perhaps I'd better ride over after Mr. Benton."
"Marian," protested Chicken Little, "there isn't time. And if Mr.
Benton's home, he has probably seen it, too, and is trying to protect
his own place. No, we've got to work fast. Unless we can run a fire
guard before the fire reaches that tall grass on the division line, the
whole place is a goner! It isn't coming very fast yet. Here, I'll run
with Jilly over to the house and you put on a pair of Frank's
trousers--your skirts might catch. I'll get that old pair of Ernest's.
Hurry, Marian, hurry!"
Chicken Little gathered up Jilly and started on the run.
Both Marian and Jane reached the stable yard just as Sherm drove the
heavy farm wagon clattering out of the gate. They hurriedly climbed in
and Sherm lashed the horses into a gallop. As they passed the cottage,
Marian exclaimed: "Did you get matches either of you?"
Sherm slowed up the team and examined his pockets.
"A handful."
"Stop a moment--I'll run fetch a box. It takes a lot." Chicken Little
was over the wheel before the words were fairly out of her mouth.
She was back in a jiffy with the matches, which she proceeded to divide
among them, while the horses leaped forward again.
"Stop on the backbone where the Santa Fe trail strikes the road."
Precisely four minutes later Sherm pulled up the panting team. Chicken
Little promptly took command. She had been out many times with her
father and brothers and knew exactly what to do.
"Wet your mop--take a bucket of water and fire right along the trail,
Marian,--that buffalo grass burns slow. Call if it starts to get away
from you. I'll begin there by the hedge. Drive about fifty yards farther
on, Sherm,--the horses will stand. Fill all the buckets and wet the
extra mops. We're liable to want them in a rush."
"All right, Jane, save your breath--you'll need it. Careful there, Mrs.
Morton, beat out the flames along the trail as you go. Never mind how
fast it whoops the other way. Caesar's ghost! that fire is getting
close!"
The waving, irregular lines of flame on the hillside were coming
steadily on, now leaping up several feet high as the breeze freshened,
now creeping close to the ground when the gusts died away. The wind was
fitful.
Marian and Sherm both had their trail of fire flickering into a blaze
before Chicken Little got hers kindled. Her hands shook so she could
hardly hold the match. The first flickered and went out, a second, then
a third, blackened, before she could coax the stubbly grass to burn. She
caught up a bunch of weeds, set it blazing in her hand and dragged it
swiftly along the ground. Tiny swirls of yellow flame wavered in her
wake, crackled feebly for an instant in the shorter herbage, then,
reaching out tongues into the longer blue stem beyond, leaped forward
like a frolicsome animal. Sherm's and Marian's lines of fire were eating
their way merrily toward hers on each side.
It was easy to beat out the flame in the Buffalo grass, which formed
their safety line toward the house, and the three soon had several
hundred feet of fire running to meet those menacing flames on the
neighboring hillside. For a while it seemed almost pretty play save for
that haunting dread of disaster. But the dripping mops were heavy for
girls' wrists and arms, the constant stooping and rising and the lifting
of the heavy buckets pulled painfully on aching muscles. They must
backfire for a third of a mile before they dared hope the place was
safe.
A field of winter wheat adjoining the wagon road where they had started,
and extending down to the bank of Big John, was the best of protection
to the lower half of the farm. West from this, there was neither track
nor field to break the tindery sweeps of prairie grass, until the strip
of breaking on the north boundary of the pasture was reached. The old
Santa Fe trail along which they were firing, fortunately extended to
within some two hundred yards of the breaking, and was their safeguard
against the ever-present danger of letting the fire get away from them
to the rear.
Older heads would have selected that hundred yards of high grass as a
starting place, while they were fresh and best able to cope with its
perils. Chicken Little was leaving it to the last. Swiftly as the three
worked, the head fire was rapidly gaining on them. Again and again, one
of them glanced toward the house in the hope that Jim Bart might have
returned, or some neighbor have seen their danger and be on the way to
help. Not a human being was in sight in any direction.
Marian straightened up with a groan and glanced despairingly at the head
fire. Sherm's gaze followed hers anxiously.
"We've got to do better than this, girls. Here, Chicken Little, make a
torch of some of those resinous weeds--those long crackly ones--and fire
just as fast as you can. I'll follow with the mop and yell if I can't
manage it."
The plan worked well for a time--their haven of hope, the brown strip of
breaking, seemed to move steadily nearer. But Chicken Little and Marian
were fast becoming exhausted. The main fire was now so close that its
smoke was beginning to drift in their faces. Prairie chickens and quail,
startled and confused by the double line of flame, whirred above their
heads, uncertain how to seek safety. A terrified jack rabbit leaped up
almost at Sherm's feet. Rabbits, ground squirrels, one lone skunk, and
even an occasional coyote, darted past them. Back at the road where they
had begun, the head fire was already meeting their line of back fire and
dying down in sullen smoke. Still, that hundred yards of blue stem was
untouched.
They paused a moment at its edge in hurried consultation.
"Let's souse all the mops--dripping wet--and trail across first,"
suggested Chicken Little in short, labored gasps. She had been running
for several minutes.
"Yes, and then fire back. Christ!--we must hurry!" Sherm, too, was
breathless. "Can you stick it out a few minutes longer, Marian?"
Marian Morton's face was drawn and colorless. She nodded and rested a
moment, leaning on her mop.
For the next sixty-five yards the blows of the wet mops rained down with
the precision of clock work. Twice the flames started in quick eddies
back of their line, but, panting, the girls almost sobbing, they beat
them back. The smoke was growing stifling. The wind, freshening, blew it
from both fires full in their faces. They could see only a few feet
ahead.
"Light another torch and run, Chicken Little--there's no time to
lose--we must chance it!"
Chicken Little obeyed silently. Half way to the breaking she stumbled
and fell. Her torch of twisted grass flew from her hand, scattering the
burning fragments about her. Before she could get to her feet, the grass
was ablaze all around. Quick-witted Sherm threw her a mop, then beat his
way toward her. Marian, summoning her last remaining strength, ran to
help, but sank to the ground in a faint before she could reach Jane.
Sherm and Chicken Little, beating, stamping madly, did not see her fall.
The flames fairly licked up the long grass. They beat them out around
Jane only to see them spread in an ever-increasing circle. Chicken
Little's legs gave way under her and she sank helplessly down, watching
the rushing fire. Sherm struggled on with parched throat and stinging
eyes, but he, too, was fast becoming exhausted in the unequal fight,
when a strong pair of hands seized the mop from his straining arms and
rained swift blows on the flaming grass. Answering blows resounded from
four other stout pairs of hands and an irregular line of charred
vegetation was soon all that was left to tell the tale of the danger
they had escaped.
"Thank God, we got here in time!" Captain Clarke ejaculated fervently,
raising Marian's head and dashing water in her face to restore her.
"We're so shut in by the timber at our place, I didn't dream the fire
was in this part of the country till one of the hands went up in the
pasture. We mounted and came double quick, I tell you. And we'd have got
here quicker, if I'd known what straits you were in. You're a plucky
lot! Easy there, Mrs. Morton, you are all right, and the fire is safe to
smoke out at its leisure. Here, drink a drop of this whiskey."
Sherm had gathered up Chicken Little and carried her beyond the smoke,
then dropped down beside her with a sigh to recover his breath. He felt
numb and so dazed he hardly heeded what the Captain was saying.
"Pretty well done for, yourself, aren't you, lad?" one of the men
inquired. "You sure knew exactly what to do, if you are a tenderfoot."
Sherm roused himself enough to twist the corners of his mouth into his
wonted smile.
"Me? I didn't do anything--Chicken Little was the boss of this gang."