“This is bad business,” said she.  “I am surprised, and there’s no woman out there with the poor little thing?”

“No,” I said; “as soon as I could I started for the doctor because I thought he was needed first.  But she needs a woman—­a woman that won’t look down on her, I wish—­I wish I knew where there was one!”

“Jake,” said she, “you’ve done the fair thing by me, and I’ll stand by you, and by her.  I’ll go to her in her trouble.  I’ll go now with the doctor.  And when I do the fair thing, see that you do the same.  I’m not the one to throw the first stone, and I won’t.  I’m going with you, Doctor.”

“What for?” said he.

“Just for the ride,” she said.  “I’ll tell you more as we go.”

They outstripped me on the return trip, for my horse was winded, and I felt that there was no place for me in what was going on at the farm, though what that must be was very dim in my mind.

I let my horse walk.  The fire was farther off, now; but the sky, now flecked with drifting clouds, was red with its light, and the sight was one which I shall never see again:  which I suppose nobody will ever see again; for I do not believe there will ever be seen such an expanse of grass as that of Iowa at that time.  I have seen prairie fires in Montana and Western Canada; but they do not compare to the prairie fires of old Iowa.  None of these countries bears such a coating of grass as came up from the black soil of Iowa; for their climate is drier.  I can see that sight as if it were before my eyes now.  The roaring came no longer to my ears as I rode on through the night, except faintly when the breeze, which had died down, sprang up as the fire reached some swale covered with its ten-foot high saw-grass.  Then, I could see from the top of some rising ground the flames leap up, reach over, catch in front of the line, kindle a new fire, and again be overleaped by a new tongue of fire, so that the whole line became a belt of flames, and appeared to be rolling along in a huge billow of fire, three or four rods across, and miles in length.

The advance was not in a straight line.  In some places for one reason or another, the thickness or thinness of the grass, the slope of the land, or the varying strength of the wind, the fire gained or lost ground.  In some places great patches of land were cut off as islands by the joining of advanced columns ahead of them, and lay burning in triangles and circles and hollow squares of fire, like bodies of soldiers falling behind and formed to defend themselves against pursuers.  All this unevenness of line, with the varying surface of the lovely Iowa prairie, threw the fire into separate lines and columns and detachments more and more like burning armies as they receded from view.