rack. Hullo!"

Nealie saw a sudden swerve on the part of Rocky, then the doctor's cane
came cutting through the air, and there was a great wriggling and
commotion on the dusty ground; but the doctor was so busy soothing the
horse that he did not even answer when she called out to know what was
the matter.

"Was it a snake?" she asked, as the cart was dragged forward at a jerk,
and Rocky, prancing along on two legs, snorting and plunging, took all
the doctor's skill to keep him from bolting in sheer fright.

"Yes; and I am very glad that you were not walking, for they are not
pleasant creatures to meet," replied the doctor, thinking how fortunate
it was that he happened to be on foot at the moment, and with a stick in
his hand, for the snake was of a very deadly kind, and the horse would
have stood no chance at all against the poison of its forked tongue.

Nealie shivered and sat suddenly straight up; it seemed as if the
little shock had restored her in some strange way. The fiercest heat of
the sun was past, and the raging of that terrible wind had dropped to a
gentle breeze which blew cool and refreshing from another quarter.
Indeed she would have felt quite cheerful had it not been for the menace
of that smoke haze lying in a cloud along the line of the hills.

Another half-hour and they were crossing the top of the ridge, while
Latimer, most snugly placed, lay on the slope of the other side. But at
first sight of the town both Nealie and the doctor had burst into
exclamations of horror, for it looked as if it had been burned out. A
cloud of smoke from the ruined houses hung thickly over the place, and
Rockefeller, with a horse's objection to facing fire, turned about on
the track and showed so much disposition to go back by the way he had
come that the doctor had to get down again and lead the scared creature.

Presently they saw a man just ahead of them, the first human being they
had glimpsed for hours, and calling to him the doctor asked what had
happened.

"It has been a fire," said the man, which, considering the smoke rising
in all directions from the ruins, was rather an unnecessary explanation.

"So I see; but what started it?" asked the doctor.

"No one will admit knowing much about that," replied the man grimly,
"but we have our thoughts all the same. We have got smallpox in the
town, you know, and one case was lodged in Jowett's hotel. The doctor
that we fetched from Mostyn said pretty decidedly t