"Why, Jack!" I exclaimed as I reined up and dismounted, "how in the world did you live through the fire? And how did you get your clothes wet?"
"In the buffalo," he answered as he again began coughing.
"In what?" I asked in perplexity. "In a buffalo?"
As he attempted to explain, still coughing, I interrupted him with:
"Never mind, Jack; don't try to talk. I savvy. Here, let me help you on Prince, and when we get to camp you can tell us all about it."
Helping him on the horse, I walked alongside of him to camp, but insisted that he should not try to talk until his lungs got clear of the smoke and ashes he had inhaled.
When he had answered my questions as to how he had escaped the fire and got his clothes wet by replying, "In the buffalo," I was at first puzzled; but gradually the explanation dawned on me. He had tried the exploit I had read of to him and Tom the other night out of Cooper's "The Prairie."
On reaching camp I hurriedly told Tom of Jack's exploit and his condition and suggested that no questions be asked for the present. We helped him into the dugout and put him to bed. I explained to Tom how, as I conjectured, Jack had escaped the fire but the Irishman was not in a condition to tell us about that, though it was with difficulty that we kept him from trying to talk.
By the next forenoon our Irishman was able to talk without much difficulty.
"Well, sir," he began in a weak voice, "I believe it's the closest call I've had this long time, and I never want to get into such another tight place, where breath is so scarce. I'd killed the buffalo and begun ripping open the hide to skin it back, and just then I got a smell of grass a-burning, and, looking up, I saw in a jiffy what a trap I was in and no way out of it unless I could fly. Suddenly I thought of that skame that Peck read about the other night, and in a minute I was cutting and slashing in blood up to my shoulders.
"I ripped open the throat and cut off the windpipe and cut loose everything around the lights inside as far as I could reach. Then I started in behind the brisket and ripped open the belly and reached in and got a holt of the windpipe and begun pulling the entrails back, and all the time I was too busy to look up to see how nigh the fire was a-getting; but I knew by the smoke thick around me and the roar of the fire that I didn't have any time to fool away.