FIRE!
The wind arose along toward midnight—the wind that many a hardened
inhabitant would have foretold hours before had he been master of his
time and thoughts. As a rule, no signal service was needed in the cow
country. Men who practically lived in the open had a natural right to
claim some close acquaintance with the portents of approaching changes.
But it would have been well had some storm flag waved over the little
town that day. For the wind that came slipping up in the night, first in
little sighing whiffs and skirmishes, gradually growing more impatient,
more domineering, more utterly contemptuous, haughty, and hungry,
sweeping down from its northwest camping grounds, carried a deadly
menace in its yet warm breath to the helpless and unprotected cattle
huddled together in startled terror or already beginning their migration
by intuition, running with the wind.
It rattled loose window-casings in the hotel, so that people turned
uneasily in their beds. It sent strange creatures of the imagination to
prowl about. Cowmen thought of the depleted herds when the riders should
come in off the free ranges in the Spring should that moaning wind mean
a real northwester.
Louise was awakened by a sudden shriek of wind that swept through the
slight aperture left by the raised window and sent something crashing to
the floor. She lay for a moment drowsily wondering what had fallen. Was
it anything that could be broken? She heard the steady push of the wind
against the frail frame building, and knew she ought to compel herself
sufficiently to be aroused to close the window. But she was very sleepy.
The crash had not awakened Mary. She was breathing quietly and deeply.
But she would be amenable to a touch—just a light one—and she did not
mind doing things. How mean, though, to administer it in such a cause.
She could not do it. The dilapidated green blind was flapping dismally.
What time was it? Maybe it was nearly morning, and then the wind would
probably go down. That would save her from getting up. She snuggled
under the covers and prepared to slip deliciously off into slumber
again.
But she couldn’t go to sleep after all. A haunting suspicion preyed on
her waking faculties that the crash might have been the water pitcher.
She had been asleep and could not gauge the shock of the fall. It had
seemed terrific, but what awakens one from sleep is always abnormal to
one’s startled and unremembering consciousness. Still, it might have
been the pitcher. She cherished no fond delusion as to the
impenetrability of the warped cottonwood flooring. Water might even then
be trickling through to the room below. She found herself wondering
where the bed stood, and that thought brought her sitting up in a hurry
only to remember that she was over the musty sitting room with its
impossible carpet. She would be glad to see it soaked—it might put a
little color into it, temporarily at least, and lay the dust of ages.
But, sitting up, she felt herself enveloped in a gale of wind that
played over the bed, and so wisely concluded that if she wished to see
this court through without the risk of grippe or pneumonia
complications, she had better close that window. So she slipped
cautiously out of bed, nervously apprehensive of plunging her feet into
a pool of water. It had not been the pitcher after all. Even after the
window was closed, there seemed to be much air in the room. The blind
still flapped, though at longer intervals. If it really turned cold, how
were they to live in that barn-like room, she and Mary? She thought of
the campers out on the flat and shivered. She looked out of the window
musingly a moment. It was dark. She wondered if Gordon had come home. Of
course he was home. It must be nearly morning. Her feet were getting
cold, so she crept back into bed. The next thing of which she was
conscious, Mary was shaking her excitedly.
“What is it?” she asked, sleepily.
“Louise! There’s a fire somewhere! Listen!”
Some one rushed quickly through the hall; others followed, knocking
against the walls in the darkness. Then the awful, heart-clutching clang
of a bell rang out—near, insistent, metallic. It was the meeting-house
bell. There was no other in the town. The girls sprang to the floor. The
thought had found swift lodgment in the mind of each that the hotel was
on fire, and in that moment Louise thought of the poisoned meat that had
once been served to some arch-enemies of the gang whose chief was now on
trial for his liberty. So quickly does the brain work under stress of
great crises, that, even before she had her shoes and stockings on, she
found herself wondering who was the marked victim this time. Not
Williston,—he was dead. Not Gordon,—he slept in his own room back of the
office. Not Langford,—he was bunking with his friend in that same room.
Jim Munson? Or was the Judge the proscribed one? He was not a corrupt
judge. He could not be bought. It might be he. Mary had gone to the
window.
“Louise!” she gasped. “The court-house!”
True. The cloudy sky was reddened above the poor little temple of
justice where for days and weeks the tide of human interest of a big
part of a big State—ay, a big part of all the northwest country,
maybe—had been steadily setting in and had reached its culmination only
yesterday, when a gray eyed, drooping-shouldered, firm-jawed young man
had at last faced quietly in the bar of his court the defier of the cow
country. To-night, it would dance its little measure, recite its few
lines on its little stage of popularity before an audience frenzied with
appreciation and interest; to-morrow, it would be a heap of ashes, its
scene played out.
“My note books!” cried Louise, in a flash of comprehension. She dressed
hastily. Shirt-waist was too intricate, so she threw on a gay Japanese
kimono; her jacket and walking skirt concealed the limitations of her
attire.
“What are you going to do?” asked Mary, also putting on clothes which
were easy of adjustment. She had never gone to fires in the old days
before she had come to South Dakota; but if Louise went—gentle,
high-bred Louise—why, she would go too, that was all there was about it.
She had constituted herself Louise’s guardian in this rough life that
must be so alien to the Eastern girl. Louise had been very good to her.
Louise’s startled cry about her note books carried little understanding
to her. She was not used to court and its ways.
They hastened out into the hallway and down the stairs. They saw no one
whom they knew, though men were still dodging out from unexpected places
and hurrying down the street. It seemed impossible that the
inconveniently built, diminutive prairie hotel could accommodate so many
people. Louise found herself wondering where they had been packed away.
The men, carelessly dressed as they were, their hair shaggy and unkempt,
always with pistols in belt or hip-pocket or hand, made her shiver with
dread. They looked so wild and weird and fierce in the dimly lighted
hall. She clutched Mary’s arm nervously, but no thought of returning
entered her mind. Probably the Judge was already on the court-house
grounds. He would want to save some valuable books he had been reading
in his official quarters. So they went out into the bleak and windy
night. They were immediately enveloped in a wild gust that nearly swept
them off their feet as it came tearing down the street. They clung
together for a moment.
“It’ll burn like hell in this wind!” some one cried, as a bunch of men
hurried past them. The words were literally whipped out of his mouth.
“Won’t save a thing.”
Flames were bursting out of the front windows upstairs. The sky was all
alight. Sparks were tossed madly southward by the wind. There was grave
danger for buildings other than the one already doomed. The roar of the
wind and the flames was well-nigh deafening. The back windows and stairs
seemed clear.
“Hurry, Mary, hurry!” cried Louise, above the roar, and pressed forward,
stumbling and gasping for the breath that the wild wind coveted. It was
not far they had to go. There was a jam of men in the yard. More were
coming up. But there was nothing to do. Men shook their heads and
shrugged their shoulders and watched the progress of the inevitable with
the placidity engendered of the potent “It can’t be helped.” But some
things might have been saved that were not saved had the first on the
grounds not rested so securely on that quieting inevitability. As the
girls came within the crowded circle of light, they overheard something
of a gallant attempt on the part of somebody to save the county
records—they did not hear whether or no the attempt had been successful.
They made their way to the rear. It was still dark.
“Louise! What are you going to do?” cried Mary, in consternation. There
were few people on this side. Louise put her hand deliberately to the
door-knob. It gave to her pressure—the door swung open. Some one
stumbled out blindly and leaned against the wall for a moment, his hands
over his eyes.
“I can’t do it,” he said, aloud, “I can’t reach the vaults.”
Louise slipped past him and was within the doorway, closely followed by
the frantic Mary.
The man cried out sharply, and stretched out a detaining hand. “Are you
crazy? Come back!”
“Mr. Gordon!” cried Louise, with a little sob of relief, “is it really
you? Let me go—quick—my note books!”
A thick cloud of smoke at that moment came rolling down the back stairs.
It enveloped them. It went down their throats and made them cough. The
man, throwing an arm over the shoulders of the slender girl who had
started up after the first shock of the smoke had passed away, pushed
her gently but firmly outside.
“Don’t let her come, Mary,” he called back, clearly. “I’ll get the note
books—if I can.” Then he was gone—up the smoke-wreathed stairway.
Outside, the girls waited. It seemed hours. The wind, howling around the
corners, whipped their skirts. There was a colder edge to it. Fire at
last broke out of the back windows simultaneously with the sound of
breaking glass, and huge billows of released black smoke surged out from
the new outlet. Louise started forward. She never knew afterward just
what she meant to do, but she sprang away from Mary’s encircling arm and
ran up the little flight of steps leading to the door from which she had
been so unceremoniously thrust. Afterward, when they told her, she
realized what her impulsive action meant, but now she did not think. She
was only conscious of some wild, vague impulse to fly to the help of the
man who would even now be safe in blessed outdoors had it not been for
her and her foolish woman’s whim. She had sent him to his death. What
were those wretched note books—what was anything at all in comparison to
his life! So she stumbled blindly up the steps. The wind had slammed the
door shut. It was a cruel obstacle to keep her back. She wrenched it
open. The clouds of smoke that met her, rolling out of their
imprisonment like pent up steam, choked her, blinded her, beat her back.
She strove impotently against it. She tried to fight it off with her
hands—those little intensely feminine hands whose fortune Gordon longed
to take upon himself forever and forever. They were so small and weak to
fend for themselves. But small as they were, it was a good thing they
did that night. Now Mary had firm hold of her and would not let her go.
She struggled desperately and tried to push her off, but vainly, for
Mary had twice her strength.
“Mary, I shall never forgive you—”
She did not finish her sentence, for at that moment Gordon staggered out
into the air. He sat down on the bottom step as if he were drunk, but
little darts of flame colored the surging smoke here and there in weird
splotches and, suddenly calm now that there was something to do, Mary
and Louise led him away from the doomed building where the keen wind
soon blew the choking smoke from his eyes and throat.
“I’ve swallowed a ton,” he said, recovering himself quickly. “I couldn’t
get them, Louise.” He did not know he called her so.
“Oh, what does it matter?” cried Louise, earnestly. “Only forgive me for
sending you.”
“As I remember it, I sent myself,” said Gordon, with a humorous smile,
“and, I am afraid, tumbled one little girl rather unceremoniously down
the stairs. Did I hurt you?” There was a caressing cadence in the
question that he could not for the life of him keep out of his voice.
“I did not even know I tumbled. How did you get back?” said Louise,
tremulously.
“Who opened the door?” counter-questioned Gordon, remembering. “The wind
must have blown it shut. I was blinded—I couldn’t find it—I couldn’t
breathe. I didn’t have sense enough to know it was shut, but I couldn’t
have helped myself anyway. I groped for it as long as I could without
breathing. Then I guess I must have gone off a little, for I was
sprawling on the floor of the lower hall when I felt a breath of air
playing over me. Somebody must have opened the door—because I am pretty
sure I had fainted or done some foolish thing.”
Louise was silent. She was thankful—thankful! God had been very good to
her. It had been given to her to do this thing. She had not meant to do
it—she had not known what she did; enough that it was done.
“It was Louise,” spoke up Mary, “and I—tried to hold her back!” So she
accused herself.
“But I didn’t do it on purpose,” said Louise, with shining eyes. “I—I—”
“Yes, you—” prompted Gordon, looking at her with tender intentness.
“I guess I was trying to come after you,” she confessed. “It was
very—foolish.”
The rear grounds were rapidly filling up. Like children following a
band-wagon, the crowd surged toward the new excitement of the discovered
extension of the fire. Gordon drew a long breath.
“I thank God for your—foolishness,” he said, simply, smiling the smile
his friends loved him for.