It was Good Friday, 1887. In the morning we noticed smoke in the northwest. There was also a strong wind from that direction. There had just previously been several days of wind as also sunshine, so everything was dry as tinder. We knew at once what the black flag, hoisted to the sky in the northwest meant. It meant a challenge from the Fire King to come out and fight for our own and our neighbors' homes--buildings, stock and everything we had that could burn. We hurriedly got our weapons of sacks and water ready and started out to meet the giant and offer him all the resistance we could. But our antagonist was terribly swift as well as strong, and when we reached Jonas Vaabeno's place, three miles to the northwest, he had already done his terrible work, making a clean sweep of all out-buildings, mostly made of hay or straw, as also of the dugout which served for a dwelling. Where the stable had stood were the remnants of some half-burnt cattle. We hurried on to Peter Johnson's, but the Fire Demon was victorious and took everything except the dugout dwelling. The same fate was dealt out to Ole Liabo farther north. We were now driven back on our own home premises, and after desperate efforts we saved our buildings, but, of course, had to surrender everything not on the premises where the buildings were, such as trees, hay, etc. When night came and we could return to the house we just threw ourselves flat on the floor completely exhausted, not having tasted food during the whole day. Next day, looking out over the country to the northwest, we could see very little except a vast desolation--how far no one seemed to know--of blackened prairie, dotted with many ashpiles which in many cases, as tho they were tombstones, marked the graves of all the settlers' material possessions except the land and a few cattle. It is a puzzle to know how they managed to keep these cattle with the prairie burned off, but they did. Not only that, but tho sorely tried, yet not broken in will or spirit, they borrowed money, even at outrageous interest rates, rebuilt their temporary shelters and began the struggle once more from the bottom up.