They were pursued.  They were fleeing from the great prairie fire of 1859, which swept Monterey County from side to side, and never stopped until it struck the river over in the next county.  I felt a little uneasy as I hiked my cattle down into the marsh on my own land, and saw them picking their way across it toward my grove, which showed proudly a mile away across the flat.  I had plowed firebreaks about my buildings and stacks, and burned off between the strips of plowing, but I felt that I ought to be at home.  So I rode on at a good trot to make my circuit of the marsh to the west.  The cattle could get through, but a horse with a man on his back might easily get mired in Vandemark’s Folly anywhere along there; and my motto was, “The more hurry, the less speed.”

As I topped the hill to get back to the high ground, I saw great clouds of smoke pouring into the valley at the west passage into the big flat, and the country to the south was hidden by the smoke, except where, away off in the southwest in the changing of the wind, I could see the line of fire as it came over the high ground west of the old Bill Trickey farm.  It was a broad belt of red flames, from which there crept along the ground a great blanket of smoke, black at first, and then turning to blue as it rose and thinned.  I began making haste; for it now looked as if the fire might reach the head of the slew before I could, and thus cut me off.  I felt in my pocket for matches; for in case of need, the only way to fight fire is with fire.

I was not scared, for I knew what to do; but not a mile from where I saw the fire on the hilltop, a family of Indiana movers were at that moment smothering and burning to death in the storm of flames—­six people, old and young, of the score or more lost in that fire; and the first deaths of white people in Vandemark Township.  Their name was Davis, and they came from near Vincennes, we found out.

And within five minutes, as I looked off to the northwest, I saw a woman walking calmly toward the marsh.  She was a long way off, and much nearer the fire than I was.  I looked for the wagon to which she might belong, but saw none, and it took only one more glance at her to show me that she was in mortal danger.  For she was walking slowly and laboriously along like a person carrying a heavy burden.  The smoke was getting so thick that it hid her from time to time, and I felt, even at my distance from the fire, an occasional hot blast on my cheek—­a startling proof of the rapid march of the great oncoming army of flames.

I kicked my heels into the horse’s flanks and pushed him to a gallop.  I must reach her soon, or she would be lost, for it was plain that she was paying no attention to her danger.  I went down into a hollow, pounded up the opposite hill, and over on the next rise of ground I saw her.  She was standing still, now, with her face turned to the fire:  then she walked deliberately toward it.  I urged my horse to a faster gait, swung my hat, and yelled at her, but she seemed not to hear.