So promptly had the neighbors mustered that the flames were conquered before they could jump into the thickest part of the woodland and swirl through the tops of the pines. Leaving a patrol to search the undergrowth in search of stray sparks, the farmers withdrew from the blackened area and gathered together to listen to the excited story of a young man armed with a shot-gun.
“This ain’t the first fire that’s been set on my property,” said he. “My pasture was touched off in three places last Saturday night, but a heavy shower of rain come along and put it out. Next mornin’, just before day, my corn-crib was burnt to the ground. Since then I’ve been lookin’ around in the woods whenever I could spare the time——”
“It’s spite work or there’s a lunatic firebug roamin’ the country,” put in the first selectman of the village.
“The spite ain’t aimed at me in particular,” resumed the young man with the gun. “Mark Wilson’s wood lot has been set, and the Widow Morgan’s back field, and nobody knows where it will happen next. As I was about to say, when I fust seen the smoke this afternoon I was on the other side of the young growth, and I put for it as hard as I could. And I saw a man sneakin’ away from the fire. I threw up my gun to give him a dose of buckshot, but he dodged among the trees and was over the hill and down in the hollow before you could say Jack Robinson. I ain’t very speedy since I was throwed out of the dingle-cart and broke my leg, and the strange man got away from me.”
“He’s the crittur that’s been settin’ all the fires,” exclaimed the first selectman. “What in thunder did he look like, Harry? Give me a description, and I’ll call a special meeting of the board to-night, and we’ll offer a reward, mebbe as much as twenty dollars.”
“I can’t say exactly. He was six feet tall, or five, anyhow, and light-complected, though he might have been dark, and he had on brown clothes, but I ain’t quite sure about the color. Anyhow, he’s the man we’ve got to ketch before we can sleep easy in our beds.”
Johnny Kent was too weary to take much interest in a man-hunt, even with the magnificent largeness of twenty dollars in prospect. Summoning the Perkins boy, who was heaving rocks at a small turtle on the bank of the brook, he clambered heavily into the buggy and turned the mare toward the road. The afternoon had been spoiled and the worthy mariner was in a disgruntled mood. A serpent had entered his Eden. Likely enough the scoundrel who was starting conflagrations all over the landscape would soon give his attention to the beloved farm with the white cottage and the very neat and tidy vegetable garden.
The owner thereof ambled to the porch with the gait of one utterly exhausted and dumped himself into the nearest chair. His face was well blackened with smoke and soot. His raiment had been torn to rags by the thickets through which he had so gallantly plunged. He looked like an uncommonly large scarecrow in the last stages of disrepair. Moreover, his eyes were reddened and smarted acutely, he had a stitch in the side, and his stomach ached.
While he reposed in this state of ruin, there came briskly walking through his front gate a ruddy, well-knit figure of a man, young in years, whose suit of blue serge became him jauntily. Halting to survey the trimly ordered flower-beds and vine-covered portico, he ceased whistling a snatch of a sea chantey and nodded approvingly. Following the path to the side of the cottage, he beheld the disreputable person seated in a state of collapse upon the porch. Instead of expressing courteous sympathy, the visitor put his hands on his hips and laughed uproariously.
Stung by this rude levity, Johnny Kent heaved himself to his feet and hurled the chair at the head of the heartless young man, who dodged it nimbly, ducked the swing of a fist big enough to land him in the middle of next week, if not farther, and shoved the engineer into the canvas hammock where he floundered helplessly and sputtered: