ven up sleeping in the house, with its squirrel-cage rooms,
preferring the soft prairie hay of the barn. But when bedtime came
this night Mr. Clerkinwell had not returned, so I sat up to wait for
the team. He had told me that he might be late. It was past midnight
when he drove up to the barn.

"Good-evening, Judson," said he. "So you waited for me."

"Yes, sir," I answered.

"Do you know if Allenham or any one is on watch about town to-night?"

"I think not, sir," I said. "I haven't seen nor heard anybody for over
an hour."

"Very careless, very careless," muttered the old gentleman. Then he
went out, and in a moment I heard his footsteps as he went up the
outside stairs to his rooms in the second story of his bank building.
I put the horses in their stalls, and fed and watered them, and
started up the ladder to the loft. What Mr. Clerkinwell had said was
still running in my mind. I stopped and thought a moment, and
concluded that I was not sleepy, and decided to take a turn about
town.

I left my lantern and went out to the one street. There was not a
sound to be heard except the rush of the wind around the houses. The
moon was almost down, and the buildings of the town and Frenchman's
Butte made long shadows on the prairie. There was a dull spot of light
on the sky to the southeast which I knew was the reflection of a
prairie fire a long ways off; but there was a good, wide fire-brake a
quarter of a mile out around the town, so there was no danger from
that, even if it should come up.

I went along down toward the railroad, walking in the middle of the
street so as not to make any noise. The big windmill on the water-tank
swung a little in the wind and creaked; and the last light from the
moon gleamed on its tail and then was gone. I turned out across where
the graders had had their camp. Here the wind was hissing through the
dry grass sharp enough. I stood gaping at the stars with the wind
blowing squarely in my face, and wondering how I ever came so far
from home, when all at once I saw straight ahead of me a little blaze
of fire.

My first thought was that it was the camp-fire of some mover on the
fire-brake. It blazed up higher, and lapped to the right and left. It
was the grass that was afire. Through the flames I caught a glimpse of
a man. A gust of wind beat down the blaze, and I saw the man, bent
over and moving along with a great torch of grass in his hand, leaving
a trail of fire. Then I saw that