“Whatever’s that?” cried Josh, springing to his feet and staring wildly through the open window.
“Eh? Whatever’s what?” said the artist, slowly, looking in the same direction. “Why, as Pat would say, it isn’t to-morrow morning, and the sun never rises in the west, or he’d be getting up now. Why, by all that’s wonderful, it’s—”
“Fire! Fire!” shouted Will, wildly.
“Yes,” cried Josh, in a husky voice, “and it’s at the mill.”
Chapter Fourteen.
Good Servant—Bad Master.
There was no stopping to put away artificial fly material. Hat and caps were snatched up, and the next minute all three were running as fast as the rugged stones and the dangerous nature of the path would allow, downward towards the mill, their faces suffused by the warm glow which rose from out of the valley beyond the trees.
For a few moments the pat, pat of the runners’ feet, and the rattle and rush of the stones they dislodged were the only sounds to be heard. Then came a loud shout from below, a confused murmur of voices, the wild shriek of a woman, followed by the hoarse voice of a man, shouting “Fire! Fire!” the last time to be drowned by the loud clang of the mill’s big bell, whose tongue seemed to be giving its utterances in a wild, hysterical way, as rope and wheel were set in motion by a pair of lusty arms.