er men now swarmed up the ladders, until there was one on every
rung from the ground to the top of the house.

Below, a line of men extended from the foot of the ladder to the great
circular horse-trough. Another line extended from the opposite side of
the store also to the horse-trough, where three men worked the great
pump.

Back twenty yards, along the King's Road, a white-faced row of women
and children stood, ready to rush home and move their furniture into
the fields.

Code, looking down, made out his mother and returned her friendly
wave. Their house was across the road not a hundred feet away.

With a muffled roar another drum on the pier exploded. A great wave of
molten fire shot out in the breeze, and the shingles on Bill
Boughton's store, parched with the drought of a month, burst into
quick flame.

The squire ran back to the water-trough.

"Dip!" he yelled. Big Pete Ellinwood, with the piles of buckets beside
him, seized one and twitched it full.

"Pass!" screamed the squire as it came up dripping. Ellinwood's great
arm swung forward to meet the arm of the man a yard away. The bucket
changed hands and went forward without losing a drop.

Up it went swiftly from one to another, to the eaves, to the two men
at the top.

Now the fire sent branches out from the burning wharf along the low
frames where some of the season's miserable catch was drying in the
open air after salting. The fish curled and blackened in the fierce
heat.

Only two men were not in the bucket brigade. They were Nailor and
Thomas, who stood watching the destruction of their whole property.
They knew the squire had done well in saving the village rather than
their own buildings. It was the tacit understanding in Freekirk Head
that a few should lose rather than the many.

Code Schofield, from his perch on the Boughton roof-tree, looked
down again to where he had last seen his mother. Once more he
distinguished the tall figure with its white face looking anxiously
up at him, and he waved his hand reassuringly. Then his eye was
caught by two other figures that lurked in the first shadows farther
up the King's Road. A moment later he made sure of their identity.

They were Nellie Tanner and Nat Burns.

For years there had been a dislike between the Burnses and the
Schofields. Old Jasper Schofield, Code's father, and Michael Burns had
become enemies over the same girl a quarter of a century before, and
the breach had never been h