Now the road began to be dotted with these wagons of the fleeing ones, and some seemed to have come far. Twice he stopped long enough to ask a question or two. But their replies gave him no real knowledge of the situation. They had been called from their beds in the early morning by the fire. Their men had stayed, the women had fled with the children. That was all they could tell.
As he came to Lansing Mountain, he met Ruth Lansing on Brom Bones escorting Mrs. Whiting and Letitia Bascom. From this the Bishop knew without asking that the fire was now coming near, for these women would not have left their homes except in the nearness of danger.
In fact the two older women had only yielded to the most peremptory authority, exercised by Ruth in the name of Jeffrey Whiting. Even to the end gentle Letitia Bascom had rebelled vigorously against the idea that Cassius Bascom, who was notoriously unable to look after himself in the most ordinary things of life, should now be left behind on the mere argument that he was a man.
The Bishop’s first question concerned Jeffrey Whiting. Ruth told what she knew. That a 156 man had met herself and Jeffrey on the road yesterday; that the man had brought news of strange men being seen in the hills; that Jeffrey had ridden away with him toward Bald Mountain.
The Bishop understood. Bald Mountain would be the place to be watched. He could even conjecture the night vigil on the mountain, and the breaking of the fire in the dawn. He could see the desperate and futile struggle with the fire as it reached down to the hills. Back of that screen of fire there was the setting of a tragedy darker even than the one of the fire itself.
“He had my letter?” the Bishop asked, when he had heard all that Ruth had to tell.
“Yes. We had just read it.”
“He went armed?” said the Bishop quietly.
“Myron Stocking brought Jeffrey’s gun to him,” the girl answered simply, with a full knowledge of all that the question and answer implied. The men had gone armed, prepared to kill.
“They will all be driven in upon French Village,” said the Bishop slowly. “The wind will not hold any one direction in the high hills. Little Tupper Lake may be the only refuge for all in the end. The road from here there, is it open, do you know?”