The streets were crowded with the inhabitants of the surrounding country. By midnight a quiver of fear had shot through every heart, and the weird light of the fire was casting a deathlike pallor over every face. A dull, threatening roar could be heard. The flames were leaping one upon another, like the incoming waves of the billowy deep, ever changing and seething like an army of hissing serpents. Their forked tongues shot high into the emblazoned clouds, fantastically lighting up the landscape. The hoarse, doleful bellowing of cattle was heard in the distance. A smell of burning grass filled the air with stifling odor. The cattle came nearer, and the sound of their trampling hoofs resembled the sullen mutterings of thunder. A command was given to turn the herds from the principal streets, but it was unavailing. Before the people realized the danger, nearly a thousand beeves, bellowing in stampeded terror, rushed pell-mell through the streets of Meade, horning each other in their fury, and trampling to death any unfortunate who happened to get in their way. They finally corralled themselves in the public square. Captain Osborn’s sonorous voice was heard above the tumult, calling for additional volunteers to help fight the oncoming flames. Horses were hastily hitched to wagons in which barrels of water were placed. Blankets, old coats, quilts, gunny-sacks, and every conceivable kind of cast-off garments were hastily secured and fastened to hoe and fork handles and poles, to be used by the brave men in fighting the fire. These recruits hastened to the limits of the town, and joined the fire-fighters, who were now begrimed with soot and smoke even beyond recognition. They continued back-firing, but it was practically unavailing. The fire would burn in the buffalo-grass only when going with the wind. The teams and breaking-plows were hastily transferred to a point nearer the town, and here wide, deep furrows were plowed. The firemen then burned the grass between these headlands, but their efforts were to prove futile in checking the sweeping flames. Then a wildly novel scene occurred. Flocks of prairie-hens, quails, meadow-larks, and thrushes, all blinded, singed, and frightened, began flying against the buildings, many of them falling to the earth either crippled or dead. The entire town echoed with fluttering wings. Wolves, driven from their dens and haunts by the prostrating heat, rushed by the fire-fighters in frantic fright. Soon the town was fairly besieged by these frenzied animals. Their advent seemed to madden the already infuriated cattle, and a general mjlie and warfare to the death ensued. The yelps and barking cries of this bedlam were at once pitiful and terrible. Dozens of wolves were gored to death.