he was inside the fire-brake.

In another moment I was running up the middle of the street yelling
"Fire!" so that to this day it is a wonder to me that I did not burst
both of my lungs.

CHAPTER III

A Fire and a Blizzard: with how a great many People go away from
Track's End and how some others come.

It was an even two hours' fight between the town of Track's End and
the fire; and they came out about even--that is, most of the
scattering dwelling-houses were burned, but the business part of the
town was saved. There was no water to be had, nor time to plow a
furrow, so we fought the fire mainly with brooms, shovels, old
blankets, and such-like things with which we could pound it out. But
it got up to the dwellings in spite of us. As soon as the danger
seemed to be past, I said to Allenham, who had had charge of the fire
brigade:

"I saw a man set that fire out there. Don't you suppose we could find
him?"

"Pike, I'll bet a dollar!" exclaimed Allenham. "We'll try it, anyhow,
whoever it is."

He ordered everybody that could to get a horse, and soon we all rode
off into the darkness. But though we were divided into small parties
and searched all that night and half the next day, nothing came of it.
I kept with Allenham, and as we came in he said:

"There's no use looking for him any longer. If he didn't have a horse
and ride away out of the country ahead of all of us, then he's down a
badger-hole and intends to stay there till we quit looking. I'll wager
he'll know better'n to show himself around Track's End again,
anyhow."

Toward night the train came in pushing Pike's box-car ahead of it.
Burrdock, who had now been promoted to conductor, said he had bumped
against it about six miles down the track. The little end door had
been broken open from the inside with a coupling-pin, which Pike must
have found in the car and kept concealed. With the window open it was
no trick at all to crawl out, set the brake, and stop the car. Nobody
doubted any longer that he was the one who had started the fire.

I may as well pass over the next month without making much fuss about
it here. Nothing happened except that folks kept going away. After
the fire nearly all of those burned out left, and about the same time
all of the settlers who had taken up claims in the neighborhood also
went back east for the winter, some of them on the train, but most of
them in white-topped covered wagons. There was almost no busines