ank; to the front, and at one side, the station. People were
hurrying to board the train, and packages and trunks were being hastily
dumped from the open door of the express car onto a truck drawn
alongside. A number of forms moved vaguely about--that pitiful,
shiftless class which no small town can eliminate, who had merely come
to "see the train come in." All this Glenning saw in the twinkling of an
eye, and then he started briskly up the crushed rock space which served
for a platform. Opposite the tender of the engine were two or three men,
one of them a negro, standing abreast, toeing an invisible line and
bawling lustily the names of different hotels. Glenning stopped for a
moment in front of a row of hands eagerly outstretched, and just then
the words "Union House!" came to his ears through the din of jumbled
voices. He remembered suddenly that a friend had told him this was the
best hotel in the place, so he resigned his suit case to the care of the
one who had yelled "Union House!" and fell in with the straggling line
of people streaming up town.

Above the babel of the hotel criers, and the slow, muffled puffs of the
inert engine, a new sound now throbbed through the air--the clanging,
tumultuous notes of a sharp-toned bell, rung with fury. The people
nearest John pricked up their ears, and he heard the sinister query,
"Where's the fire?" "Where's the fire?" repeated on all sides. No one
knew, and those who had been from home, and had returned on the train,
hastened their steps, some breaking into a run, for none knew whose
household goods were in danger. The panic spirit seized Glenning, too,
for henceforth his life was to be in this place, and with these people,
and he found himself running with the others. Covering a short square,
they turned into the main street of Macon, where confusion reigned. Men
were dashing about in the middle of the street, shouting to each other,
and an ancient fire engine had just been dragged into view, with the
hook-and-ladder wagon trailing in its wake. Glenning ran towards the
engine, which had halted in the center of the highway, and at which some
striplings were tugging in a vain effort to move it.

"Where's the horses? Where's the fire company?" demanded the new-comer,
hurriedly, stopping in perplexity.

"Men is the hosses that pull this old water-bug!" volunteered one of the
youths, ceasing his efforts to move the antiquated vehicle; "'n' the
fire comp'ny's anybody that's