Green Timber Thoroughbreds

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

He crawled back to the window, and again set up his desperate outcry. But all the inhabitants of Forkville were sound asleep.

A stranger arrived at Forkville at 1:20 a.m., Tuesday, February the tenth. He carried a light pack on his shoulders, and his snowshoes atop the pack. The road was good. He topped a rise, rounded a sharp elbow of second growth spruce and fir, and saw the covered bridge, the village and the white fields laid out before him in the faint but enchanting light of frosty stars.

“It looks like an illustration for a fairy-story,” he said; and just then he became aware of the fact that something seemed to be wrong with the charming picture. The fault lay with the nearest house of the village. Smoke arose from it, white as frosted breath, and lurid gleams and glows wavered and flickered about its lower windows. He paused for a few seconds, staring, strangely horrified by the sight and the thought of a dwelling blazing unheeded and unsuspected in that scene of peace and fairy beauty. Then he ran. He went flying down the short dip and through the tunnel of the barn-like bridge, and, as he slackened his pace on the rise beyond, he heard old Dave Hinch’s frantic yells. He recognized the sound only as a human cry, for he did not know Hinch or the voice of Hinch. He responded with an extra burst of speed—ignoring the slope—and with a ringing shout.

The stranger soon spotted the window from which the yells issued. A minute later, by means of a ladder, he rescued the old man.

Just then three of the villagers arrived on the scene. They had been aroused from their slumber by the stranger’s shouts. They looked at Dave, then at the stranger, then back at Dave.

“Where’s Joe?” asked one of them.

The old man’s lower jaw sagged. He pointed at a window, an upper window of the main house.

“Reckon Joe’s still abed,” he said.

The neighbors swore. The stranger ran to the ladder, flopped it across and along to the window indicated, cast off his pack, and ascended like a sailor or a professional fireman. Upon reaching the window, he smashed glass and thin wood with his double-clad fists. A thin reek of smoke came out. He wound his scarf about his throat, pulled his fur cap down over ears and eyes and went head first through the shattered window. Down at the foot of the ladder, Dave Hinch cried out at sight of that destruction, and one of his neighbors cursed him for a fool and worse.

The stranger picked himself up from the floor of the dark room into which he had plunged. He couldn’t see anything, and the air was deadly with heat and smoke. He turned and kicked what little was left of the window sash clear out of the frame. Turning again, he dropped on his hands and knees, and went in search of the bed and the unfortunate Joe. The bare floor was warm. He found the bed almost immediately by bumping his head against the wooden side of it. He got to his feet, reached over and felt a human figure in the bed. He pulled it toward him, sheets, blankets, and all, clutched it to his laboring breast and made for the window. He was thankful that Joe was a lightweight. He found one of the natives at the top of the ladder and passed his unconscious burden out to him.