Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/367

850 A PRAnUB PIKE. mainy miles from home; when all at once it was ob- seirTed that the wind had changed. A prairie fire was next observed, which caused the game to come toward them and away from the fire; but in a twink- lix^the wind veered (it does so on the prairie) and blew a hurricane, the speed of the wind being at least fifty miles an hour. The boys were of course in the low-lying land as that is the place where game almost always stay, but the grass was often higher than the boys themselves, and had they been caught by the fire in such a place, it would have burned their n^ed bodies to a crisp turn. But young Wasbashas was equal to the occasion, and was the first to call his companions' attention to their perU, and at his sug- gestion, he running ahead, they made for a high point at least three miles distant, and by reason of his, pluck and staying qualities, he kept admonishing the. boys to hang on to their game, which however made it rather hard to continue the pace, but finding some of the boys not equal to the strain, he ran back and took the most backward by the hand and helped him along, and thus encouraged the stronger of the party to do likewise with other weaker ones. But the fire is gaining on them, and finding they cannot reach t^e point for which he is making, all at once, observing that they are passing over a spot where the grass is shorter, he concludes to stop, which no sooner done, than by example he starts pulling with his hands the long grass. This is enough speech for the taciturn yonng Indians, who are completely fagged, but who desperfttely pull bunches of grass and toss it in the direction indicated by their boy leader. But the