V.

Down in the valley south of the post a broad glare was already shooting

upward and illumining the sky. One among a dozen little shanties and log

houses, the homes of the laundresses of the garrison and collectively

known as Sudsville, was a mass of flames. There was a rush of officers

across the parade, and the men, answering the alarum of the trumpet and

the shots and shouts of the sentries, came tearing from their quarters

and plunging down the hill. Among the first on the spot came the young

men who were of the party at Captain Rayner's, and Mr. Graham was ahead

of them all. It was plain to the most inexperienced eye that there was

hardly anything left to save in or about the burning shanty. All efforts

must be directed towards preventing the spread of the flames to those

adjoining. Half-clad women and children were rushing about, shrieking

with fright and excitement, and a few men were engaged in dragging

household goods and furniture from those tenements not yet reached by

the flames. Fire-apparatus there seemed to be none, though squads of men

speedily appeared with ladders, axes, and buckets, brought from the

different company quarters, and the arriving officers quickly formed the

bucket-lines and water dipped up from the icy creek began to fly from

hand to hand. Before anything like this was fairly under way, a scene of

semi-tragic, semi-comic intensity had been enacted in the presence of a

rapidly gathering audience. "It was worth more than the price of

admission to hear Blake tell it afterwards," said the officers, later.

A tall, angular woman, frantic with excitement and terror, was dancing

about in the broad glare of the burning hut, tearing her hair, making

wild rushes at the flames from time to time as though intent on dragging

out some prized object that was being consumed before her eyes, and all

the time keeping up a volley of maledictions and abuse in lavish

Hibernian, apparently directed at a cowering object who sat in limp

helplessness upon a little heap of fire-wood, swaying from side to side

and moaning stupidly through the scorched and grimy hands in which his

face was hidden. His clothing was still smoking in places; his hair and

beard were singed to the roots; he was evidently seriously injured, and

the sympathizing soldiers who had gathered around him after deluging him

with snow and water were striving to get him to arise and go with them

to the hospital. A little girl, not ten years old, knelt sobbing and

terrified by his side. She, too, was scorched and singed, and the

soldiers had thrown rough blankets about her; but it was for her father,

not herself, she seemed worried to distraction. Some of the women were

striving to reassure and comfort her in their homely fashion, bidding

her cheer up,--the father was only stupid from drink, and would be all

right as soon as "the liquor was off of him." But the little one was

beyond consolation so long as he could not or would not speak in answer

to her entreaties.

All this time, never pausing for breath, shrieking anathemas on her

drunken spouse, reproaches on her frightened child, and invocations to

all the blessed saints in heaven to reward the gintleman who had saved

her hoarded money,--a smoking packet that she hugged to her

breast,--Mrs. Clancy, "the saynior laundress of Company B," as she had

long styled herself, was prancing up and down through the gathering

crowd, her shrill voice overmastering all other clamor. The vigorous

efforts of the men, directed by cool-headed officers, soon beat back the

flames that were threatening the neighboring shanties, and levelled to

the ground what remained of Private Clancy's home. The fire was

extinguished almost as rapidly as it began, but the torrent of Mrs.

Clancy's eloquence was still unstemmed. The adjurations of sympathetic

sisters to "Howld yer whist," the authoritative admonition of some old

sergeant to "Stop your infernal noise," and the half-maudlin yet

appealing glances of her suffering lord were all insufficient to check

her. It was not until the quiet tones of the colonel were heard that she

began to cool down: "We've had enough of this, Mrs. Clancy: be still,

now, or we'll have to send you to the hospital in the coal-cart." Mrs.

Clancy knew that the colonel was a man of few words, and believed him to

be one of less sentiment. She was afraid of him, and concluded it time

to cease threats and abuse and come down to the more effective _rôle_ of

wronged and suffering womanhood,--a feat which she accomplished with the

consummate ease of long practice, for the rows in the Clancy household

were matters of garrison notoriety. The surgeon, too, had come, and,

after quick examination of Clancy's condition, had directed him to be

taken at once to the hospital; and thither his little daughter insisted

on following him, despite the efforts of some of the women to detain her

and dress her properly.

Before returning to his quarters the colonel desired to know something

of the origin of the fire. There was testimony enough and to spare.

Every woman in Sudsville had a theory to express, and was eager to be

heard at once and to the exclusion of all others. It was not until he

had summarily ordered them to go to their homes and not come near him

that the colonel managed to get a clear statement from some of the men.

Clancy had been away all the evening, drinking as usual, and Mrs. Clancy

was searching about Sudsville as much for sympathy and listeners as for

him. Little Kate, who knew her father's haunts, had guided him home, and

was striving to get him to his little sleeping-corner before her

mother's return, when in his drunken helplessness he fell against the

table, overturning the kerosene lamp, and the curtains were all aflame

in an instant. It was just after taps--or ten o'clock--when Kate's

shrieks aroused the inmates of Sudsville and started the cry of "Fire."

The flimsy structure of pine boards burned like so much tinder, and the

child and her stupefied father had been dragged forth only in time to

save their lives. The little one, after giving the alarm, had rushed

again into the house and was tugging at his senseless form when rescue

came for both,--none too soon. As for Mrs. Clancy, at the first note of

danger she had rushed screaming to the spot, but only in time to see the

whole interior ablaze and to howl frantically for some man to save her

money,--it was all in the green box under the bed. For husband and child

she had for the moment no thought. They were safely out of the fire by

the time she got there, and she screamed and fought like a fury against

the men who held her back when she would have plunged into the midst of

it. It took but a minute for one or two men to burst through the flimsy

wall with axes, to rescue the burning box and knock off the lid. It was

a sight to see when the contents were handed to her. She knelt, wept,

prayed, counted over bill after bill of smoking, steaming greenbacks,

until suddenly recalled to her senses by the eager curiosity and the

remarks of some of her fellow-women. That she kept money and a good deal

of it in her quarters had long been suspected and as fiercely denied;

but no one had dreamed of such a sum as was revealed. In her frenzy she

had shrieked that the savings of her lifetime were burning,--that there

was over three thousand dollars in the box; but she hid her treasure and

gasped and stammered and swore she was talking "wild-like." "They was

nothing but twos and wans," she vowed; yet there were women there who

declared that they had seen tens and twenties as she hurried them

through her trembling fingers, and Sudsville gossiped and talked for two

hours after she was led away, still moaning and shivering, to the

bedside of poor Clancy, who was the miserable cause of it all. The

colonel listened to the stories with such patience as could be accorded

to witnesses who desired to give prominence to their personal exploits

in subduing the flames and rescuing life and property. It was not until

he and the group of officers with him had been engaged some moments in

taking testimony that something was elicited which caused a new

sensation.

It was not by the united efforts of Sudsville that Clancy and Kate had

been dragged from the flames, but by the individual dash and

determination of a single man: there was no discrepancy here, for the

ten or a dozen who were wildly rushing about the house made no effort to

burst into it until a young soldier leaped through their midst into the

blazing door-way, was seen to throw a blanket over some object within,

and the next minute appeared again, dragging a body through the flames.

Then they had sprung to his aid, and between them Kate and "the ould

man" were lifted into the open air. A moment later he had handed Mrs.

Clancy her packet of money, and--they hadn't seen him since. He was an

officer, said they,--a new one. They thought it must be the new

lieutenant of Company B; and the colonel looked quickly around and said

a few words to his adjutant, who started up the hill forthwith. A group

of officers and ladies were standing at the brow of the plateau east of

the guard-house, gazing down upon the scene below, and other ladies,

with their escorts, had gathered on a little knoll close by the road

that led to Prairie Avenue. It was past these that the adjutant walked

rapidly away, swinging his hurricane-lamp in his hand.

"Which way now, Billings?" called one of the cavalry officers in the

group.

"Over to Mr. Hayne's quarters," he shouted back, never stopping at all.

A silence fell upon the group at mention of the name. They were the

ladies from Captain Rayner's and a few of their immediate friends. All

eyes followed the twinkling light as it danced away eastward towards the

gloomy coal-sheds. Then there was sudden and intense interest. The lamp

had come to a stand-still, was deposited on the ground, and by its dim

ray the adjutant could be seen bending over a dark object that was half

sitting, half reclining at the platform of the shed. Then came a shout,

"Come here, some of you." And most of the men ran to the spot.

For a moment not one word was spoken in the watching group: then Miss

Travers's voice was heard:

"What can it be? Why do they stop there?"

She felt a sudden hand upon her wrist, and her sister's lips at her ear:

"Come away, Nellie. I want to go home. Come!"

"But, Kate, I must see what it means."

"No: come! It's--it's only some other drunken man, probably. Come!" And

she strove to lead her.

But the other ladies were curious too, and all, insensibly, were edging

over to the east as though eager to get in sight of the group. The

recumbent object had been raised, and was seen to be the dark figure of

a man whom the others began slowly to lead away. One of the group came

running back to them: it was Mr. Foster.

"Come, ladies: I will escort you home, as the others are busy."

"What is the matter, Mr. Foster?" was asked by half a dozen voices.

"It was Mr. Hayne,--badly burned, I fear. He was trying to get home

after having saved poor Clancy."

"You don't say so! Oh, isn't there something we can do? Can't we go

that way and be of some help?" was the eager petition of more than one

of the ladies.

"Not now. They will have the doctor in a minute. He has not inhaled

flame; it is all external; but he was partly blinded and could not find

his way. He called to Billings when he heard him coming. I will get you

all home and then go back to him. Come!" And, offering his arm to Mrs.

Rayner, who was foremost in the direction he wanted to go,--the pathway

across the parade,--Mr. Foster led them on. Of course there was eager

talk and voluble sympathy; but Mrs. Rayner spoke not a word. The others

crowded around him with questions, and her silence passed unnoted except

by one.

The moment they were inside the door and alone, Miss Travers turned to

her sister: "Kate, what was this man's crime?"