ant later, Dunwody staggered back, his arm
across his face. His hair was smoking, the mustaches half burned
from his lips. He gasped for breath, but, revived by air, drew his
coat across his mouth and once again dashed back. Josephine,
standing with hands clasped, her eyes filled with terror, expected
never to see him emerge alive.

He was scarcely more than alive when once more he came back,
blinded and staggering. This time arms reached out to him,
steadied him, dragged him from the gallery, through the enshrouding
smoke, to a place of safety.

He bore something shielded, concealed in his arms--something, which
now he carried tenderly and placed down away from the sight of
others, behind the shade of a protecting clump of shrubbery. His
breath, labored, sobbing, showed his distress. They caught him
again when he staggered back, dragged him to a point somewhat
removed, upon the lawn. All the time he struggled, as though once
more to dash back into the flames, or as though to find his
weapons. He was sobbing, half crazed, horribly burned, but
seemingly unmindful of his hurts.

The fire went on steadily with its work, the more rapidly now that
the opening of the front doors had admitted air to the interior.
The construction of the house, with a wide central hall, and
stairways leading up almost to the roof, made an admirable
arrangement for a conflagration. No living being, even though
armed with the best of fire fighting apparatus, could have survived
in that blazing interior. All they could do, since even a bucket
brigade was out of the question here, was to stand and watch for
the end. Some called for ladders, but by accident or design, no
ladders were found where they should have been. Men ran about like
ants. None knew anything of time's passing. No impression
remained on their minds save the fascinating picture of this tall
pillar of the fire.

Dunwody ceased to struggle with those who restrained him. He
walked apart, near to the little clump of shrubs. He dropped to
the ground, his face in his hands.

"What do you reckon that thah was he brung out in his arms, that
time?" demanded Mr. William Jones, after a time, of a neighbor who
met him a little apart. "Say, you reckon that was _folks_?
Anybody _in_ there? Anybody over--thah? Was that a bed--folded up
like--'bout like a crib, say? I'm skeered to go look, somehow."

"God knows!" was the reply. "This here house has had mighty
strange