"What can we do, Tom?" I asked. "Can't we do something to help him?"
"I don't see what we can do," replied the old man with a look of despair, "but you run down to the stable and clap the saddle onto Prince, and be ready to go and look for what's left of him soon as the fire burns out. It'll stop when it gets to the creek and quick as the smoke clears away so's you can stand it, you be ready to light out."
I rushed to the stable and he followed me, talking as I saddled up.
"Near as I could make him out through the glass, I believe it's that infernal old Broken Nose that's done this job. It looked some like him and I noticed he climbed on and off his pony like an old man."
I soon had Prince saddled and led him up onto the bank, where we impatiently waited what seemed an endless time but was really only a few minutes.
The fire was now roaring and crackling just beyond the strip of timber bordering the creek. The smoke would probably have been stifling in our camp by this time, but on striking the timber the wind had given it an upward pitch that sent most of it above us.
The fire kept up such a roaring and rushing noise that I began to fear that the wind might carry some of it across the creek, but as soon as it entered the timber on the north side, where the grass was shorter, a marked subsidence was apparent.
I mounted and moved up to the south bank of the creek, anxious to be off on my search for Jack, but a dense cloud of smoke and flying ashes whirled through the trees from the burnt ground for some minutes after the fire seemed to have exhausted its fury, and, impatient as I was, I yet had to wait before venturing to enter the burnt district. As soon as I could endure it I crossed the creek and started, still half blinded and choked by the flying smoke and ashes, which so obscured my vision that I could see but a short distance ahead. The fire now was all gone except here and there a few buffalo-chips still burning, but the hot smoke-and-ashes-laden air was stifling.
I struck a gallop, to hurry through the worst part of the ground, and soon began to get out into a little clearer atmosphere, and was greatly rejoiced to see Jack coming toward me though yet some distance off. I noticed that though he was coming with the wind he walked unsteadily, as though nearly exhausted, stopping now and then to sit down and rest. The air was yet so murky that he had not noticed me until I came near him, when, staggering to his feet from an old buffalo skull he had been sitting on, he waved his hand weakly and tried to whoop, but the effort set him to coughing as he halted and leaned on his rifle. As I reached him I noticed that his wolfskin overcoat that he wore at starting from camp was missing and his other clothes were much soiled, apparently having been wet in places, coated with adhering soot and ashes, and now frozen by the cold wind.