turn toward me, and in a minute all those
faces, pink and shiny, were around me.

"She got out!" they screamed and shouted. "Where's the Judge? Any one
else?"

"The Judge and the baby!" I cried and sat down on the grass.

"No!" shouted the depot master. "The Judge is all right. I just met him
walking over the bridge after the freight had gone through. It wasn't
twenty minutes ago. But you can't save a thing--not a stick of
furniture. The whole thing is gone from front to back on the ground
floor already!"

"Here's the Judge now! That's him running with the straw hat in his
hand," a woman shrieked, and ran out toward him with her hair flying
behind. I could see his tall figure, with its long legs, come hurdling
across the street. I could see his white face with the jaw square and
the lips pressed tight together.

"You!" he said, bending down. "Yes! Where's Julianna? Where's my baby?"

My head seemed to twist around like the clouds of pink smoke and the
whirl of hot air that tossed the hanging boughs of the trees. The
crackle and roar of the fire seemed to be going on in my skull. But I
managed to throw my head back and my hands out to show they were empty.

"God!" he cried.

The world went all black for me then, but I heard voices.

"Stop, Judge! Don't go! You'd never get out."

"Let go of me!"

"He's going into a furnace! Somebody stop him!"

"Look! Look! You'll never see _him_ again."

I opened my eyes. Judge Colfax's long lean body, with its sloping
shoulders, was in the doorway, as black as a tree against a sunset. I
saw him duck his head down as if he meant to plough a path through the
fire, and then a fat roll of smoke shut off all view of him.

"They're both gone--him and the baby!" roared the depot master. "Lost!
Both lost!"

The woman with the flying hair heard this and ran off again, screaming.
I listened to the piercing voice of her and the roar and the clanging of
bells. Horses came running up behind me, with heavy thuds of hoofs, and
voices in chorus went up with every leap of the fire. It was like a
delirium with the fever; and the grass, under my hands where I sat, felt
moist and cool.

Then all of a sudden the shouting and noise all seemed to stop at once,
so there was nothing but the snapping and crackle and hiss of the
flames, and a voice of a little boy cried out:--

"The Judge is climbing down the porch! He's got something in his arms!"

"It's the baby!" yelled the depot master,