ght to you." With a departing pat he
crept up the ladder to the loft above, and, scooping out a berth in
the loose hay, snuggled down in it to sleep. Soon his regular
breathing up there kept step with the steady munching of the horse in
her stall. The two reunited friends were dreaming happy Christmas
dreams.

The night wore into the small hours of Christmas morning. The fury of
the storm was unabated. The old cottage shook under the fierce blasts,
and the chestnuts waved their hoary branches wildly, beseechingly,
above it, as if they wanted to warn those within of some threatened
danger. But they slept and heard them not. From the kitchen chimney,
after a blast more violent than any that had gone before, a red spark
issued, was whirled upward and beaten against the shingle roof of the
barn, swept clean of snow. Another followed it, and another. Still
they slept in the cottage; the chestnuts moaned and brandished their
arms in vain. The storm fanned one of the sparks into a flame. It
flickered for a moment and then went out. So, at least, it seemed. But
presently it reappeared, and with it a faint glow was reflected in the
attic window over the door. Down in her stall 'Liza moved uneasily.
Nobody responding, she plunged and reared, neighing loudly for help.
The storm drowned her calls; her master slept, unheeding.

But one heard it, and in the nick of time. The door of the shed was
thrown violently open, and out plunged Jim, his hair on fire and his
clothes singed and smoking. He brushed the sparks off himself as if
they were flakes of snow. Quick as thought, he tore 'Liza's halter
from its fastening, pulling out staple and all, threw his smoking coat
over her eyes, and backed her out of the shed. He reached in, and,
pulling the harness off the hook, threw it as far into the snow as he
could, yelling "Fire!" at the top of his voice. Then he jumped on the
back of the horse, and beating her with heels and hands into a mad
gallop, was off up the street before the bewildered inmates of the
cottage had rubbed the sleep out of their eyes and come out to see the
barn on fire and burning up.

Down street and avenue fire-engines raced with clanging bells, leaving
tracks of glowing coals in the snow-drifts, to the cottage in the
chestnut lots. They got there just in time to see the roof crash into
the barn, burying, as Joe and his crying wife and children thought,
'Liza and their last hope in the fiery wreck. The door had blow