“Dad, what are you doing here?” Alec called.

His father didn’t need to answer. He opened the door leading upstairs and smoke billowed into the corridor! Only then did Alec remember with horror that Snappy had been frying bacon on Henry’s stove—and that he had forgotten to turn it off!

No longer was the night still. When Alec ran toward the stairs to help his father he heard the crackling of flames beyond the smoke. The onslaught of destruction had come and he had helped to create it.

FIERY AFTERMATH

2

The smoke rose above the barn … softly, moving, waving, drifting. Then with a deafening roar the night was shattered by the raging inferno that had spawned the smoke. Long tongues of flame reached out from second-story windows, greedily grasping and devouring adjacent treetops. Echoing the scream of the fire came the snorts and squeals of pastured horses. From farther away came the wailing siren of the village firehouse, summoning its volunteers.

Inside the barn Alec and his father came down the stairs from the second floor, their figures seeming to float through the dim, murky veil of heat.

“Get the colt, Dad,” the boy said. “We’ve done all we can up there.” There was no fright in his voice, only defeat. “I’ll take the mare.” He picked up an empty feed sack.

Mr. Ramsay nodded but his eyes were glazed and staring as if he didn’t understand at all. Yet he went to the colt and picked him up carefully, steadying him on his feet. Then he turned to Alec and the glassiness left his eyes. “You’d better be careful of her, son.”

He watched Alec step inside the stall, talking to Miz Liz as if nothing at all were happening upstairs. His voice was so soft that Mr. Ramsay could catch a word only now and then, but by watching the frightened mare he knew she was listening to Alec. He moved along the corridor, the colt heavy in his arms.

Alec snapped the lead shank onto Miz Liz’s halter and wrapped the sack about her head so she could not see. “Come,” he whispered, starting her toward the door. With the roar above and the heat in her flared nostrils, Miz Liz was no longer vicious, only terribly afraid. Neither he nor the colt had anything to fear from her now, thought Alec. But what a price to pay for their acceptance!

Suddenly the ceiling directly above them exploded and slender bits of flame fell at Alec’s feet, igniting the straw. He and the mare leaped as one through the stall door and into the corridor.

Now the very air was alive with tiny particles of heat that stung Alec’s face. He pulled down the mare’s head, shielding it as best he could with his own body. Only once did he look up, and he saw a raging canopy of fire directly above them. He hurried Miz Liz along the corridor faster, for in her new terror she was inclined to hang back. More and more falling tongues of flame were coming down now and Alec began twisting as he ran in an effort to avoid them. Miz Liz screamed and bolted forward in pain. Fortunately the exit was just ahead and they followed Mr. Ramsay and the colt through it and out into the coolness of the night air.

They stayed at a run until Alec could no longer feel the heat upon his back, and then he slowed Miz Liz. He removed the blindfold and she stood trembling beside him for a few minutes; finally she whinnied.