Somebody came with a short ladder, and in another moment three or four
adventurous spirits, led by Blakely and Truman, were scrambling about
the veranda roof, their hands and faces glowing in the gathering heat,
spreading blankets over the shingling and cornice. In five minutes all
that was left of Blakely's little homestead was gone up in smoke and
fierce, furious heat and flame, but the daring and well-directed
effort of the garrison had saved the rest of the line. In ten minutes
nothing but a heap of glowing beams and embers, within four crumbling
walls of adobe, remained of the "beetle shop." Bugs, butterflies,
books, chests, desk, trunks, furniture, papers, and such martial
paraphernalia as a subaltern might require in that desert land, had
been reduced to ashes before their owner's eyes. He had not saved so
much as a shoe. His watch, lying on the table by his bedside, a silk
handkerchief, and a little scrap of a note, written in girlish hand
and carried temporarily in the breast pocket, were the only items he
had managed to bring with him into the open air. He was still gasping,
gagging, half-strangling, when Captain Cutler accosted him to know if
he could give the faintest explanation of the starting of so strange
and perilous a fire, and Blakely, remembering the stealthy footsteps
and that locked or bolted door, could not but say he believed it
incendiary, yet could think of no possible motive.
It was daybreak as the little group of spectators, women and children
of the garrison, began to break up and return to their homes, all
talking excitedly, all intolerant of the experiences of others, and
centered solely in the narrative of their own. Leaving a dozen men
with buckets, readily filled from the acequia which turned the old
water wheel just across the post of No. 4, and sending the big water
wagon down to the stream for another liquid load, the infantry went
back to their barracks and early coffee. The drenched blankets, one by
one, were stripped from the gable end of Truman's quarters, every
square inch of the paint thereon being now a patch of tiny blisters,
and there, as the dawn broadened and the pallid light took on again a
tinge of rose, the officers gathered about Blakely in his scorched and
soaked pyjamas, extending both condolence and congratulation.
"The question is, Blakely," remarked Captain Westervelt dryly, "will
you go to Frisco to refit now, or wait till Congress reimburses?"
whereat the scientist was observed to smile somewhat ruefully. "The
question is, Bugs," burst in young Doty irrepressibly, "will you wear
this rig, or Apache full dress, when you ride after Wren? The runners
start at six," whereat even the rueful smile was observed to vanish,
and without answer Blakely turned away, stepping gingerly into the
heated sand with his bare white feet.