ing as he passed me, and having
growled out something about being "deuced tired, and sleeping like a
log," he went upstairs.

I followed him in time to see him enter his own room, which was only
half a dozen doors from mine, and to hear him noisily lock the door. It
occurred to me that he was desirous to have me know that he _had_
locked it, and I wondered if already he had begun to suspect my motive.

CHAPTER XXIV

Fire!

I went to bed determined not to sleep, but to keep my ears open for any
sound in the passage outside. Luckily there was a creaky board on which
he had stepped a few minutes ago. If he attempted to go away during the
night he would very possibly step on it again. But I was exceedingly
tired after my long journey. Before I had been in bed an hour I was
dreaming so vividly a pursuit of my quarry through the streets of San
Francisco, that I fully believed I had waked, got up, and gone out after
him.

In the end the dream seemed to change. The pretender had boarded a
railway train, and I was with the engine-driver of another, following at
a dare-devil speed. The place was reeking hot. In my dream I choked in
the smoke which flew into my face, and was dazzled with the red glare of
the fire, on which the engine-driver was piling great pieces of fat
bacon. As we flew along the rails the locomotive swayed from side to
side, and I could hear a loud rattling of wheels and of window glass.

Suddenly a puff of smoke seemed on the very point of stifling me, and I
awoke to find myself sitting up in bed and gasping for breath.

I had not dreamed the rattling of glass, nor the jarring sensation, nor
yet the smoke and heat and lurid light. The walls shook with a dull
vibration, and the window-panes were like castanets. Through the glass
transom over the door I could see a shimmering, ruddy glow that rose and
fell, and was brightened by bursting sparks and little darting tongues
of yellow flame. Apart from this one lurid spot all was thickly
curtained into darkness by a heavy pall of smoke.

Had I lain for a few moments longer I must have suffocated in my sleep.
Even as it was, my brain felt dull and stupid, and I could scarcely
collect my senses.

Choking and coughing, tears running from my eyes that smarted with the
pungent wood smoke, I sprang out of bed, and then sat down again with a
slight exclamation, drawing up my feet. The floor was so hot that the
touch of it, even for an instant, had almost