For some time it seemed as though the church could not be saved. The fire had made good headway with the flooring, and had also made progress in the chancel and the altar. Skill and organization, combined with good luck, conquered, however. Though a portion of the roof was destroyed and the chancel gutted, the church was not beyond repair, and a few thousand dollars would put it right. There was danger, however, among the smaller houses surrounding the church, and there men from both towns worked with great gallantry. By one of those accidents which make fatality, a small wooden house some distance away, with a roof as dry as wool, caught fire from a flying cinder. As everybody had fled from their own homes and shops to the church, this fire was not noticed until it had made headway. Then it was that the cries of Madame Thibadeau, who was confined to her bed in the house opposite, were heard, and the crowd poured down towards the burning building. It was Gautry’s “caboose.” Gautry himself had been among the crowd at the church.
As Gautry came reeling and plunging down the street, someone shouted, “Is there anyone in the house, Gautry?”
Gautry was speechless with drink. He threw his hands up in the air with a gesture of maudlin despair, and shouted something which no one understood. The crowd gathered like magic in the wide street before the house—the one wide street in Manitou—from the roof and upper windows of which flames were bursting. Far up the street was heard the noisy approach of the fire-engine, which now would be able to do little more than save adjoining buildings. Gautry, reeling, mumbling and whining, gestured and wept.
A man shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Brace up, get steady, you damned old geezer! Is there any body in the house? Do you hear? Is there anybody in the house?” he roared.
Madame Thibadeau, who had dragged herself from her bed, was now at the window of the house opposite. Seeing Fleda Druse passing beneath, she called to her.
“Ma’mselle, Felix Marchand is in Gautry’s house—drunk!” she cried. “He’ll burn to death—but yes, burn to death.”
In agitation Fleda hastened to where the stranger stood shaking old Gautry.
“There’s a man asleep inside the house,” she said to the stranger, and then all at once she realized who he was. It was Dennis Doane, whose wife was staying in Gabriel Druse’s home: it was the husband of Marchand’s victim.
“A man in there, is there?” exclaimed Dennis. “Well, he’s got to be saved.” He made a rush for the door. Men called to him to come back, that the roof would fall in. In the smoking doorway he looked back. “What floor?” he shouted.
From the window opposite, her fat old face lighted by the blazing roof, Madame Thibadeau called out, “Second floor! It’s the second floor!”