During this decade of getting the ground ready and gradually getting an equipment for real farming there was one great enemy which was a continual menace and terror to the homesteaders--the semi-annual burning of the prairie. From times immemorial, before the White settler came, the prairie fire had stalked in majestic splendor over the vast and boundless sea of grass, covering this and adjoining states, licking up with his red and cruel tongue everything before him and leaving a barren desolation behind him. Sometimes set by the lightning, or Indians, or the campfire of the early explorer or trader, this fire, driven by the wind, would meander back and forth over the prairie for days and weeks until rain or a considerable stream might at last stay his stride. With the first influx of the settler the fire menace greatly multiplied, for not understanding the nature of this menace, they themselves unintentionally set many of these fires. Thus there came to be a fairly certain expectation on the part of the homesteaders of a visit from this monster twice a year--spring and fall--unless he made a clean sweep in the fall, which was not generally the case. As a boy I recall waking up at night and seeing a strange glare against the window, and upon looking out, I saw a great wave of fire, a moving wall of flame, pass by our house and going on to the south. Let me give a brief sketch of one of these fires, well remembered by the old settlers and reported to me by H.B. Reese, who was then old enough to be out with the men on the fire fighting line. I give it largely in his own words.