the flames leaped and tossed against the sky, and the sparks
were sucked up into the cold air, and whirled in sheets across the river.

John Ward came breathlessly towards his wife. "Are you all right, Helen?
You seemed too near; come back a little further." Then, suddenly seeing
the woman beside her with the baby in her arms, he stopped, and looked
about. "Where's your boy, Mrs. Nevins?" he said. The woman glanced around
her.

"I--I'm not just sure, preacher."

"Have you seen him since six o'clock?"

"No--I--I ain't," the woman answered. There was something in John's face
which terrified her, though the mere absence of her son gave her no
uneasiness.

"Go back, Helen," he said, quickly,--"go as far as that second house,
or I shall not feel sure you are safe. Mrs. Nevins, we must look for
Charley. I am afraid--he was in the lumber-yard this afternoon"--

John did not wait to hear the woman's shriek; he turned and ran from
group to group, looking for the boy whom he had seen building block
houses on the pile of sawdust; but the mother, pushing her baby into
a neighbor's arms, ran up and down like a mad woman.

"My boy!" she cried; "Charley! Charley! He's in the fire,--my boy's in
the fire!"

Tom Davis had heard the hurried words of the preacher, and the mother's
cries roused all the manhood drink had left. He hesitated a moment, and
then pushing Molly towards the cripple whose taunts still rung in his
ears, "Take care of the brat!" he said, and pulling off his coat, which
he wrapped about his head to guard himself from the falling boards, he
stooped almost double, and with his left arm bent before his face, and
his right extended to feel his way, he ran towards the fire, and
disappeared in the blinding smoke.

Even Mrs. Nevins was silenced for a moment of shuddering suspense; and
when she tossed her arms into the air again, and shrieked, it was because
John Ward came towards her with Charley trotting at his side.

"You should have looked after the child," the preacher said sternly. "I
found him on the other side of the yard, near the fire-engine."

Mrs. Nevins caught the boy in her arms in a paroxysm of rage and joy; and
then she thought of Tom.

"Oh, preacher," she cried, "preacher! he's run in after him, Tom Davis
has!"

"_There?_" John said, pointing to the fire. "God help him!"

There was no human help possible. Tom had run down between two long piles
of boards, not yet in flames, but already a sheet