The Frontier Fort | Page 3

to the Red River. Next morning they continued their journey westward, pushing on at greater speed than usual, to make up for lost time, Burnett being very anxious to reach the fort by the day he was expected.
The country was generally lovely, being well wooded, with numerous lakelets, now rising into softly rounded knolls, and occasionally opening out into a wide, fair landscape. The soil was of rich loam, and the vegetation luxuriant, sprinkled with flowers of many tints.
They had been moving on for a couple of hours or more, when Loraine, looking to the southward, observed a remarkable appearance in the horizon, which wore an unearthly ashen hue. Pointing it out to Burnett, he asked--
"Can that be produced by a prairie fire?"
"No; but if I mistake not, we shall have, before long, a flight of locusts passing over our heads. That peculiar look of the sky is produced by the light reflected from their transparent wings."
As he spoke, the whole sky appeared to be changing from blue to silvery white, then to ashy grey and lead colour; while, opposite to the sun, the prevailing hue was a silver white--perceptibly flashing, the air seeming as if rilled with flakes of snow.
"The insects are flying from five hundred to a thousand feet above our heads; and I hope we may get clear of them before we camp, or they will play mischief with everything made of leather, which is left exposed," observed Burnett.
He was, however, disappointed; for, in a short time, the locusts descended--the whole air became filled with them, until they reached the ground, where they clung to the blades of grass in countless multitudes.
During the remainder of the day the creatures continued coming on; and when the party at length stopped at night, they had to clear away the ground to form their camp.
The voracity of the insects was proved by the way they attacked and destroyed several articles of clothing, which had carelessly been left on the grass. The travellers found, indeed, that the only way to protect their property was to pile it up in the carts out of reach. Dan Maloney appeared with a melancholy countenance, exhibiting a leather bag and a pair of woollen trousers, which he had thrown down outside the tent, eaten through and through in all directions. At night the insects, fortunately, did not move. Early in the morning they were found busily feeding; but as soon as the sun had evaporated the dew, they began taking short flights, and then cloud after cloud rose, and pursued their way to the northward.
Burnett assured his companions that he had never seen so large a flight before; and, as far as he could ascertain, many years had passed without the country receiving a similar visitation.
Scarcely had the locusts disappeared, than what looked like a thick, black fog-bank was seen rising from the direction whence they had come. It approached nearer and nearer. Leblanc, riding forward, pointed it out to Burnett.
"The prairie is on fire," he remarked.
"I know it is; I saw it from the first. But I don't think it will come near us."
"I am not quite so sure of that. It comes on fast, and the grass here is very long," said the guide.
"Then we'll make our way to yonder knoll, where it is shorter," said Burnett, who was not to be put out by Indians, locusts, or prairie fires.
The word was given to drag the carts towards the spot Burnett had indicated.
"A fire on the prairie is a serious matter, is it not?" observed Loraine, in a tone of inquiry.
"I do not much fear it, notwithstanding," answered Burnett. "We shall have a storm before long, I suspect, and that will fight the flames."
"I should have thought that a storm would be more likely to fan them into greater fury," remarked Loraine, who considered that Burnett was not sufficiently alive to the dangers they might have to encounter from the fire.
"Not if it rains as I expect it will," observed Burnett. "Look at that cloud ahead. It contains a torrent sufficient to extinguish the fiercest flames."
Loraine had hitherto been admiring the beautiful appearance of the sky. To the south it was of that bright blue such as is seldom seen in the British Isles. To the west it was bordered with vast, billowy clouds of the softest, snowy white. Beneath the black cloud, which was every instant extending, were grey masses whirling on at a terrific rate; while, suddenly, to the north and east the expanse of heaven assumed a dun-coloured hue, vivid with lightning, where rain appeared to be descending in torrents. The whole atmosphere was charged with electricity. The lightning rushed towards the earth, in straight and zig-zag currents, the thunder varying from the sharp rattle of musketry to the roar