would carry her, all
her terror of the night swept away in the one idea that the townspeople
might be too late to help the old man if he should happen to be in the
burning house. She never stopped to wonder what aid she, a child of
twelve, could render, she never thought of arousing Mr. Carson, but
stumbled breathlessly on in the darkness toward the shack now burning
merrily.

Somewhere behind her she heard a second revolver alarm; then someone
passed her in the road, and a man's voice called, "Go home, Tabitha.
This is no place for you." But still she kept on, having scarcely heard
the words, and hardly aware that other help than her own feeble strength
was at hand.

That was a night she never forgot. In these desert mining towns where
water costs a dollar a barrel and the system of piping it into the
houses is yet in its infancy, fire is not an easy thing to fight, and
many a time the whole camp has been destroyed before the conflagration
could be checked or would burn itself out. The hermit's hut, however,
was so isolated that the town was in no danger, even from the flying
sparks, but there was not a drop of water to throw on the flames, and
the roads were too steep and rough for the volunteer fire department to
drag their chemicals to the rescue.

So the little shack burned to the ground, but Mr. Carson and Tabitha
arrived in time to pull the lone occupant to safety, though it was a
close call for the old miner, for he was almost suffocated with the
smoke and his head and hands were badly burned.

Mr. Carson, too, suffered from his buffeting with the flames, but
Tabitha came out unscathed, and when the men from town arrived, hatless
and anxious, they found the child helping the brave superintendent in
his efforts to revive the unconscious hermit, while the little yellow
cur whined in terror at their feet, and the blaze of the burning house
mounted high in the heavens.

Dr. Vane was among the crowd, and he quietly took charge of the patient,
easing his suffering and binding up his wounds as best he could while
someone went for a rig that the injured man might be carried back to
town more easily.

"Now, put some of that stuff on Mr. Carson's hands," commanded Tabitha,
who had watched the proceedings with interest, holding bandages and
passing ointments under the physician's directions. "His are all
scorched, too."

"How are your own?" someone asked her, noticing how drawn and white her
face was in the lurid