any had
sped for the water wagon and were now slowly trundling that unwieldy
vehicle, pushing, pulling, straining at the wheels, from its night
berth close to the corrals. Rushing like mad, in no order at all, the
men of the other company came tearing across the open parade, and were
faced and halted far out in front of officers' row by Blakely himself,
barefooted and clad only in his pyjamas, but all alive with vim and
energy.

"Back, men! back for your blankets!" he cried. "Bring ladders and
buckets! Back with you, lively!" They seemed to catch his meaning at
the instant. His soldier home with everything it contained was doomed.
Nothing could save it. But there stood the next quarters,--Truman's
and Westervelt's double set,--and in the intense heat that must
speedily develop, it might well be that the dry, resinous woodwork
that framed the adobe would blaze forth on its own account and spread
a conflagration down the line. Already Mrs. Truman, with Norah and the
children, was being hurried down to the doctor's, while Truman
himself, with the aid of two or three neighboring "strikers," had
stripped the beds of their single blanket and, bucketing these with
water, was slashing at the veranda roof and cornice along the
northward side.

Somebody came with a short ladder, and in another moment three or four
adventurous spirits, led by Blakely and Truman, were scrambling about
the veranda roof, their hands and faces glowing in the gathering heat,
spreading blankets over the shingling and cornice. In five minutes all
that was left of Blakely's little homestead was gone up in smoke and
fierce, furious heat and flame, but the daring and well-directed
effort of the garrison had saved the rest of the line. In ten minutes
nothing but a heap of glowing beams and embers, within four crumbling
walls of adobe, remained of the "beetle shop." Bugs, butterflies,
books, chests, desk, trunks, furniture, papers, and such martial
paraphernalia as a subaltern might require in that desert land, had
been reduced to ashes before their owner's eyes. He had not saved so
much as a shoe. His watch, lying on the table by his bedside, a silk
handkerchief, and a little scrap of a note, written in girlish hand
and carried temporarily in the breast pocket, were the only items he
had managed to bring with him into the open air. He was still gasping,
gagging, half-strangling, when Captain Cutler accosted him to know if
he could give the faintest explan