The Prairie Detective: Secret Service Series No. 24 — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE PRAIRIE DETECTIVE. 155 minutes; and in an additional period of equal length the two men had started their opposing fires. The theory that great flames generate rapid currents of air which blow in the direction taken by their cre- ators, thus urging the devastating element faster and faster upon its course, has long been accepted as true. The watchers, who gazed anxiously at the work of their hands, their hopes rising as each tongue of jfire shot upward, were able to bear wit. ness to the correctness of the proposition which has since become an established fact in science. They could see the approaching column of fire, whirling along toward them, rolling over and over like a huge red-crested billow propelled by some un- seen force. Between fit and themselves was rising with ever increasing strength the flame they had kindled. It went out to meet the oncoming foe, like a small army, recruiting its strength as it traveled, marching to oppose an arrogant. invading force. And like the rulers who stay behind in times of war, to guide and instruct the bearers of their arms, watching anxiously for the result, were those three friends, who with throbbing hearts and distended eyes stood in mid-stream, gazing fixedly at the battle of flame. The defensive fire, as it gathered power, also gen- erated a strong breeze which blew in direct antagon- ism to the one created by the opposing flames. Thus each breeze, freighted with its load of burning coals, caught and checked the sparks of the other, so that as the creeping skirmish lines approached each other, reaching out to meet and do battle with their foes, the scene became one of intense grandeur. _As far as the eye could reach, to the east, west, south, and north, there was a wall of flying particles (ele) a. GComicboo cS