Around the centre of the plain
A belt of flame retreated denied--
And, like a furnace, glowed the train
That walled them in on every side:
And onward rolled the torrent wild--
Wreathes of dense smoke obscured the sky!
The mother knelt beside her child,
And all--save one--shrieked out, "We die."

"Not so!" he cried.--"Help!--Clear the sedge!
Strip bare a circle to the land!"
That done, he hastened to its edge,
And grasped a rifle in his hand:
Dried weeds he held beside the pan,
Which kindled at a flash the mass!
"Now fire fight fire!" he said, as ran
The forked flames among the grass.

On three sides then the torrent flew,
But on the fourth no more it raved!
Then large and broad the circle grew,
And thus the pilgrim band was saved!
The flames receded far and wide--
The mother had not prayed in vain:
God had the Teton's arts defied!
His scythe of fire had swept the plain!