the others stupefied by smoke--or something. In
less time than it takes to tell it, daring fellows had ripped down the
blazing shades and shutters, tossed them to the parade beneath, dumped a
heap of soaked and smoking bedding out of the rear windows, splashed a
few bucketfuls of water about the reeking room, and the fire was out.
But the doctors were working their best to bring back the spark of life
to two senseless forms, and to still the shrieks of agony that burst
from the seared and blistered lips of Bridget Doyle.

While willing hands bore these scorched semblances of humanity to
neighboring rooms and tender-hearted women hurried to add their
ministering touch, and old Braxton ordered the excited garrison back to
quarters and bed, he, with Cram and Kinsey and Ferry, made prompt
examination of the premises. On the table two whiskey-bottles, one
empty, one nearly full, that Dr. Potts declared were not there when he
left at one. On the mantel a phial of chloroform, which was also not
there before. But a towel soaked with the stifling contents lay on the
floor by Jim's rude pallet, and a handkerchief half soaked, half
consumed, was on the chair which had stood by the bedside, among the
fragments of an overturned kerosene lamp.

A quick examination of the patients showed that Jim, the negro, had been
chloroformed and was not burned at all, that Doyle was severely burned
and had probably inhaled flames, and that the woman was crazed with
drink, terror, and burns combined. It took the efforts of two or three
men and the influence of powerful opiates to quiet her. Taxed with
negligence or complicity on the part of the sentry, the sergeant of the
guard repudiated the idea, and assured Colonel Braxton that it was an
easy matter for any one to get either in or out of the garrison without
encountering the sentry, and, taking his lantern, led the way out to the
hospital grounds by a winding foot-path among the trees to a point in
the high white picket fence where two slats had been shoved aside. Any
one coming along the street without could pass far beyond the ken of the
sentry at the west gate, and slip in with the utmost ease, and once
inside, all that was necessary was to dodge possible reliefs and
patrols. No sentry was posted at the gate through the wall that
separated the garrison proper from the hospital grounds. Asked why he
had not reported this, the sergeant smiled and said there were a dozen
others just as conven