t out of a book?"

The Cap'n made no reply. He only hitched himself forward as though
trying to assist the momentum of the cart, and clutched his buckets,
one in each hand.

A woman came flying out of the first house they passed and squalled:

"Where's the fire, Mr. Brackett, and is anybody burnt up, and hadn't
you jest as liv' take my rags now? I've got 'em all sacked and ready
to weigh, and I sha'n't be to home after to-day."

Brackett pulled up.

"Blast your infernal pelt," howled the Cap'n, "you drive on!"

"Bus'ness is bus'ness," muttered the peddler, "and you ain't bought
me and my team with that little old ten dollars of yourn, and you
can't do northin', anyway, till Hecla gits there with the boys, and
when you're there I don't see what you're goin' to amount to with
that sore toe."

He was clearly rebellious. Cap'n Sproul had touched the tenderest
spot in T.W. Brackett's nature by that savage yelp at his vocal
efforts. But the chief of the Ancients had been wounded as cruelly
in his own pride. He stood up and swung a bucket over the crouching
peddler.

"Drive on, you lubber," he howled, "or I'll peg you down through that
seat like I'd drive a tack. Drive on!"

Brackett ducked his head and drove. And the Cap'n, summoning all the
resources of a vocabulary enriched by a sea experience of thirty
years, yelled at him and his horse without ceasing.

When they topped the ridge they were in full view of Ide's doomed
buildings, and saw the red tongues of flame curling through the
rolling smoke.

But a growing clamor behind made the Chief crane his neck and gaze
over the top of the van.

"Hecla" was coming!

Four horses were dragging it, and two-score men were howling along
with it, some riding, but the most of them clinging to the brake-beams
and slamming along through the dust on foot. A man, perched beside
the driver, was bellowing something through a trumpet that sounded
like:

"Goff-off-errow, goff-off-errow, goff-off-errow!"

The peddler was driving sullenly, and without any particular
enterprise. But this tumult behind made his horse prick up his ears
and snort. When the nag mended his pace and began to lash out with
straddling legs, the Cap'n yelled:

"Let him go! Let him go! They want us to get off the road!"

"Goff-off-errow!" the man still bellowed through the trumpet.

"I've got goods that will break and I'll be cuss-fired if I'll break
'em for you nor the whole Smyrna Fire Department!