It was an awful sight! a sea of fire roaring in its fury, with Its heaving waves and unearthly hisses, approaching nearer and nearer, rushing on swifter than the sharp morning breeze.  Had we not just escaped so unexpectedly a danger almost as terrible, we should have despaired and left off an apparently useless struggle for our lives.

Away we dashed, over hills and down declivities; for now the ground had become more broken.  The fire was gaining fast upon us, when we perceived that, a mile ahead, the immense herds before us had entered a deep, broad chasm, into which they dashed, thousands upon thousands, tumbling headlong into the abyss.  But now, the fire rushing quicker, blazing fiercer than before, as if determined not to lose its prey, curled its waves above our heads, smothering us with its heat and lurid smoke.

A few seconds more we spurred in agony; speed was life; the chasm was to be our preservation or our tomb.  Down we darted? actually borne upon the backs of the descending mass, and landed, without sense or motion, more than a hundred feet below.  As soon as we recovered from the shock, we found that we had been most mercifully preserved; strange to say, neither horse nor rider had received any serious injury.  We heard, above our heads, the hissing and cracking of the fire; we contemplated with awe the flames, which were roaring along the edge of the precipice—­now rising, now lowering, just as if they would leap over the space and annihilate all life in these western solitudes.

We were preserved; our fall had been broken by the animals, who had taken a leap a second before us, and by the thousands of bodies which were heaped up as a hecatomb, and received us as a cushion below.  With difficulty we extricated ourselves and horses, and descending the mass of carcasses, we at last succeeded in reaching a few acres of clear ground.  It was elevated a few feet above the water of the torrent, which ran through the ravine, and offered to our broken-down horses a magnificent pasture of sweet blue grass.  But the poor things were too terrified and exhausted, and they stretched themselves down upon the ground, a painful spectacle of utter helplessness.

We perceived that the crowds of flying animals had succeeded in finding, some way further down an ascent to the opposite prairie; and as the earth and rocks still trembled, we knew that the “estampede” had not ceased, and that the millions of fugitives had resumed their mad career.  Indeed there was still danger, for the wind was high, and carried before it large sheets of flames to the opposite side, where the dried grass and bushes soon became ignited, and the destructive element thus passed the chasm and continued its pursuit.

We congratulated ourselves upon having thus found security, and returned thanks to heaven for our wonderful escape; and as we were now safe from immediate danger, we lighted a fire and feasted upon a young buffalo-calf, every bone of which we found had been broken into splinters[25].