Before they were half way home, the growing light ahead of them attracted their attention; and then they began to hear the vigorous shouts of "Fire!" from the throats of the two boys, re-enforced now by Mr. Foster himself, and the lawyer's voice was an uncommonly good one. Dabney was driving the ponies, and they had to go pretty fast for the rest of that short run.
"Surprise?" exclaimed Ham. "I should say it was! Did you light it before you started, Dabney?"
"Don't joke, Hamilton," remarked Mrs. Kinzer. "It may be a very serious affair for all of us. But I can't understand how in all the world that barn should have caught fire."
"Guess it was set a-going," said Dab.
CHAPTER XVI.
DAB KINZER AND HAM MORRIS TURN INTO A FIRE-DEPARTMENT.
The Morris farm, as has been said, was a pretty large one; and the same tendency on the part of its owners which led them to put up so extensive and barn-like a house, had stimulated them from time to time to make the most liberal provisions for the storage of their crops. Barns were a family weakness with them, as furniture had been with the Kinzers. The first barn they had put up, now the oldest and the farthest from the house, had been a large one. It was now in a somewhat dilapidated condition, to be sure, and was bowed a little northerly by the weight of years that rested on it; but it had still some hope of future usefulness if it had not been for that tramp and his box of matches.
"There isn't a bit of use in trying to save it!" exclaimed Ham, as they were whirled in through the wide-open gate. "It's gone!"
"But, Ham," said Mrs. Kinzer, "we can save the other barns perhaps. Look at the cinders falling on the long stable. If we could keep them off somehow!"
"We can do it, Ham," exclaimed Dab, very earnestly. "Mother, will you send me out a broom and a rope, while Ham and I set up the ladder?"