Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/166

 cans containing more than one hundred thousand applications for lands, were loaded on drays and taken into the country and deposited in the center of a large plowed field, for safety. The gamblers put their gains into sacks and joined the surging masses, and with grips got from the numerous check rooms, all the people fled like stampeding cattle to a position to the north of town which was protected by a corn field on the west.

Ernest Nicholson, leading the business men and property owners, bravely fought the oncoming disaster. The chemical engine and water hose were rushed forward but were as pins under the drivers of a locomotive. The water from the hose ran weakly for a few minutes and then with a blowing as of an empty faucet, petered out from lack of water. The strong wind blew the chemical into the air and it proved as useless. The fire entered the city. One house, a magnificent residence, was soon enveloped in flames, which spread to another, and still to another.

The thousands of people huddled on a bare spot, but safe, watched the minatureminiature [sic] city of one year and the gate-way to the homesteads of the next county, disappear in flames.

Megoryites, seeing the danger threatening her hated rival five miles away, called for volunteers who readily responded and formed bucket brigades, loaded barrels into wagons, filled them with water and burned the roads in the hurry-up call to the apparently doomed city.

I could see the fire from where I was harvesting flax ten miles away, and the cloud of smoke, with the