We have already remarked that the fire extended more rapidly in one lateral direction than the other. This Charles S---- observed, and immediately sought to take advantage of it, and if possible get to the windward of the fire. But long before they reached the line of the flame, the fire had extended miles in this very direction. It was too late--there was no escape--the fire was every moment approaching them. Mrs. N---- clasped her young daughter to her bosom and sat still in the wagon. The oxen, as the flames advanced, became perfectly unmanageable. They rushed forward with the fury of wild and maddened beasts into the thickest of the flames. The one team took one direction, and the other, another, but both of them continued to move on through the hottest column of flame, till at length the cattle one after another fell down in the yoke, suffocated by the flame, and bellowing as though in the agonies of death. Long before the last ox had fallen, and the wagon had ceased to move, Mrs. N----, with her youngest child clasped to her bosom, had given up the ghost. The tow awning which covered the wagon in which she rode, took fire almost as soon as they met the line of flame, and instantly all the combustible materials in the vehicle were in flames. Escape seemed impossible, for already the oxen were moving with the speed of the wind through the thickest of the flames, and Mrs. N.----, clasping her child to her bosom, yielded to her fate, committing all to God. Poor George, not able to keep pace with the team he drove, as he saw the flame marching on, sought by running to escape from the face of the devouring element, but the attempt was vain. The whirlwind of fire soon overtook him, and like a resistless sea, rolled its burning waves over him. When Charles S---- saw the team he drove could no longer be controlled, and that in order to follow them he must encounter certain death, he left them to take their own course, and sought to rush through the line of flame--which had now become so expanded, that long before he passed the fiery column, the flesh was almost burned from his bones, and he at length fell down upon the burning earth, unable to move a step farther. The fire still moved on with awful, unabated fury over the wide and far-extended prairie. No one that looked upon that awful sight could have failed to have exclaimed, "What a time it will be for the ungodly when this whole world shall be on fire!" When the morning came, a most melancholy spectacle was presented to view over that blackened plain. One solitary living human form alone, was seen slowly moving amid the scene of desolation--and that was Mr. N----. He found Charles S---- just in the last agonies of death, from whom, however, he learned the particulars above stated. This young man soon expired; and Mr. N----, alone, of all that emigrant train, was left to tell the sad story of THE BURNING PRAIRIE. CHAPTER IX. FURTHER VIEWS ON THE MISSISSIPPI.