“Will you take care of Dorothy?” she said; “Lanty isn’t here—oh, isn’t it terrible?” and then she fled back to show the men where the new harness was in the house, and to try to get her sewing machine and a few other of her housewifely treasures. All the neighbourhood was there working with mad energy. These people might gossip and backbite and perhaps misjudge each other sorely, but no need such as this found deaf ears. They knew what such a catastrophe meant, how vital a thing it was, and wild with the energy which is born of hopeless struggle, they strove to cheat the fire-fiend’s greedy maw. Ab Ranger and young Shinar were rolling out the barrels of flour from Mabella’s well-stocked storeroom, when, high above the noise of the flames and the excited hum of voices, there came the sound of wildly galloping hoofs. The next instant the roan, with Lanty on her back, took the high fence as though it were in her stride, and Lanty, flinging himself from the saddle, rushed to the burning house. He could see for the moment neither wife nor child, nor did he know if the neighbours had arrived in time. He was distraught with apprehension. His wild ride since he had first seen the glimmer of the fire had seemed to him as hours of agony. He ran hither and thither through the crowd uttering incoherent demands for his wife and child.
Mabella appeared in the doorway. The flames lit up his face, distorted with anxiety and terrible fear. A great throb of relief made his heart leap, and released the sanguine blood which rushed to his head.
Mabella and Dorothy were safe—why was he idle?
He leaped towards the doorway, but Mabella, labouring under a deadly apprehension, a terrible fear, had seen his face and been seized by a panic.
“Lanty! Lanty! Don’t go in!” she cried.
“Not go in!” he said, and held on his way.
Then a terrible resolution came to Mabella; she had fought bravely to keep up appearances, to hide her husband’s delinquencies, now she must betray them to save him. Was she, for paltry pride, to risk letting him enter the burning house in that condition? A thousand times no! He was too dear to her. She caught hold if young Shinar, the strongest man in Dole.
“Oh, Tom!” she cried, “hold Lanty—don’t let him go in. He is not himself.”
Her voice, shrill with fear and agony, rose above the duller sounds, and pierced every ear there.
Lanty gave an inarticulate sound of grief and wrath and self-reproach. The next moment he felt Shinar’s hand upon his shoulder, heard a persuasive if rough voice in his ear, but what it said he did not know, for a wild, blind rage possessed him, and he flung off the hand with a curse. But Shinar would not let him go.