Well, it wasn't much fun for me. They played and they played, and I stuck to Freckles—which his name was called nothing but Harold all that afternoon, and for the first time I said to myself “Harold” seemed to fit. I stuck to him because a dog should stick to his boy, and a boy should stick to his dog, no matter what the disgrace. But after while I got pretty tired and lay down on a rug, and a new kind of flea struck me. After I had chased him down and cracked him with my teeth I went to sleep.
I must have slept pretty sound and pretty long. All of a sudden I waked up with a start, and almost choking, for the place was smoky. I barked and no one answered.
I ran out on to the landing, and the whole house was full of smoke. The house was on fire, and it looked like I was alone in it. I went down the back stairway, which didn't seem so full of smoke, but the door that let out on to the first-floor landing was locked, and I had to go back up again.
By the time I got back up, the front stairway was a great deal fuller of smoke, and I could see glints of flame winking through it way down below. But it was my only way out of that place. On the top step I stumbled over a gray wool bunch of something or other, and I picked it up in my mouth. Thinks I, “That is Freckles's gray sweater, that he is so stuck on. I might as well take it down to him.”
It wasn't so hard for a lively dog to get out of a place like that, I thought. But I got kind of confused and excited, too. And it struck me all of a sudden, by the time I was down to the second floor, that that sweater weighed an awful lot.
1 dropped it on the second floor, and ran into one of the front bedrooms and looked out.
By jings! the whole town was in the front yard and in the street.
And in the midst of the crowd was Mrs. Wilkins, carrying on like mad.
“My baby!” she yelled. “Save my baby. Let me loose! I'm going after my baby!”
I stood up on my hind legs, with my head just out of that bedroom window, and the flame and smoke licking up all around me, and barked.