d. Already
these mothers were erecting the invisible roof-tree and drawing around
them and theirs the circle of the hearth, even though it was a circle
drawn only in hot, drifting ashes. The Bishop was an inquisitor kindly
of eye and understanding of heart, but by no means to be evaded.
Unsuspected stores of bread and beans and tinned meats came forth from
nondescript bundles of clothing and were laid under his eye. It
appeared that Arsene LaComb had stayed in his little provision store
until the last moment portioning out what was his with even hand, to
each one as much as could be carried. The Bishop saw that it was all
pitifully little for those who had lived in the village and for those
refugees who had been driven in from the surrounding hills. But, he
thought, it would do. These were people born to frugality, inured to
scanty living.

The thing now was to give them work for their hands, to put something
before them that was to be accomplished. For even in the ruin of all
things it is not well for men to sit down in the ashes and merely
wait. They had no tools left but the axes which they had carried in
their hands to the rafts, but with these they could hew some sort of
shelter out of the loose logs in the lake. A rough shack of any kind
would cover at least the weaker ones until lumber could be brought up
or until a saw could be had for the ruined mill at the outlet of the
lake. It would be slow work and hard and a makeshift at the best. But
it would put heart into them to see at least something, anything,
begin to rise from the hopeless level of the ashes.

Three of the hill men had managed to keep their horses by holding
desperately to them all through the day before and swimming and wading
them through the night in the lake. These the Bishop despatched to
what, as near as he could judge, were the nearest points from which
messages could be gotten to the world outside the burnt district. They
bore orders to dealers in the nearest towns for all the things that
were immediately necessary for the life and rebuilding of the little
village. With the orders went the notes of hand of all the men
gathered here who had had a standing of credit or whose names would
mean anything to the dealers. And, since the world outside would well
know that these men had now nothing that would make the notes worth
while, each note bore the endorsement of the Bishop of Alden. For the
Bishop knew that there was no time to wait for cha