Dick always maintained that Jake shot twice at Hugh as he raced across the clearing, but if he did so, Hugh was quite unconscious of the fact.
“We can’t put it out—we can’t put it out—there is so little water!” he caught himself gasping aloud as he ran.
Fortunately Dick, when he came from the spring, had set down his full pail by the doorstep when he went to rescue Hulda. Dashing inside, Hugh dragged the blankets from the bunks, plunged them into the water and then swung himself up over the eaves to the burning roof. Blindly and furiously he beat at the flames, choking in the dense smoke, feeling sparks and coals burn through his coat, yet caring for nothing but that he must quench the fire. Dick handed him up pail after pail of water from below; how he ever went and came from the spring so quickly was impossible to understand.
It was Hugh who had the presence of mind to realize that the water must be husbanded and thrown upon the fire in well-aimed dipperfuls rather than poured pell-mell across the roof. It was Dick who shouted up to him that he must try to drive the flames back from the cabin proper, since saving the blazing shed behind it was already beyond hope. How they toiled, now getting a little the better of the fire, now driven back by a fresh outburst of flame, too excited either to hope or to despair, feeling only one instinct—to fight. Hours passed, they were drenched, blackened, their clothes singed, their hands and faces burned, they were exhausted; breathless, but at last victorious.
Slowly the flames died down to smoldering ashes, the smoke cleared away, the last glowing coal was stamped upon, the last spark went out. Hugh slid to the ground, finding his knees suddenly a little shaky, and stood looking happily into Dick’s blackened face.
“We did it,” he said; “Oscar’s got his cabin still.”
“Yes,” the other assented a trifle quaveringly; “I thought once or twice it was really gone.”
“And now,” went on Hugh, “where’s Hulda?”
Fires, it seemed, did not excite Hulda in the least, for she was discovered grazing peacefully at the edge of the clearing, her former agitation entirely vanished. Nicholas had followed the boys at first, but, after getting a few sparks in his furry coat, had decided to retreat and was sitting solemnly beside her, mounting guard. The cow’s stable, set at a little distance, was untouched by the flames, so Hulda was driven in, her manner showing plainly that she was glad to get home again after the disturbing events of the last few hours. The boys lit a lantern and tended her together, as though she might escape again were one of them to minister to her alone. They made no comment on the fire, both seeming to avoid the subject as long as possible.
“It’s cold,” commented Dick, once, shivering in his dripping garments, to which Hugh replied: