"Never mind the long while ago--tell us about to-night," interrupted one of the young men impatiently.
"That's what I was telling you about," said the man in an injured tone. "It was a long while ago--to-night. I looked over here just the other side of that oil warehouse--there's only one wall left to it now--an' I saw a fellow strike a match. I thought he was goin' to light his pipe, but he took a box from under his arm an' stuck the match in it. The box flared up as though it was full o' shavings, an' then he stuck it under a lumber-pile. I hollered at him, an' he ran. Then the fire started up, an' I got to the fire-box an' turned in the alarm. Then there was hell to pay." The man made this announcement in a dull, matter-of-fact way that gave a touch of comedy-in-tragedy to his words.
"What sort of looking man was he?" I asked.
"Oh, he was an oldish man--an old man--tall, an' sort of stooped."
"Stout or thin?"
"Thin, I guess--he was too far away for me to say for sure, an' bein' as I was kind of flustered by the fire, too."
At his words an illuminating light came to my mind. The fire was not directed at the Pacific Mail docks. It was set to destroy the yards of the Kendrick Lumber and Milling Company, and it had succeeded. It was the crowning stroke of Peter Bolton's assault on Wharton Kendrick's fortune.
I wondered whether Peter Bolton had himself set the match to the lumber-pile. The description by the watchman fitted him, and he did not lack the will for the deed. But it was so foreign to his cautious temper to take the risks of committing such a crime with his own hand that I hesitated to believe. Yet when he had once resolved upon such a step, it might well have seemed safer to him to perform the act himself, than to confide it to an accomplice who might betray him.
I was turning over this problem in my mind, and watching with unconscious eyes the bold and resolute efforts of the firemen to fight back the flames, when I was roused by a flight of stones. Two of them struck the nearest engine; one knocked the hat off a man of my company; and a fireman was struck down, only to jump to his feet in a moment with a torrent of oaths. The fire chief roared a profane but vigorous condemnation of the assault, and devoted its authors to an even warmer place than the furnace that blazed before us.
"That's the fifth time we've got it," said the engineer, backing up his chief with a contribution of blistering words.