Over in the cabin by the spring-house where the boys had left the tramp and Jonesy, a puff of smoke went curling around the roof.  Then a tongue of flame shot up through the cedars, and another and another until the sky was red with an angry glare.  It lighted up the eastern window-panes of the servants’ cottage, but the inmates, tired from the unusual serving of the evening before, slept on.  It shone full across the window of Virginia’s room, but she was dreaming of being chased by bears, and only turned uneasily in her sleep.

The old professor, on his way to the kitchen, noticed that it seemed strangely light outside.  He shuffled to the door and looked out.

“Ach Himmel!” he exclaimed, excitedly.  “Somebody vill shust in his bed be burnt, if old Johann does not haste make!”

Not waiting to close the door behind him, or even to catch up something to protect his old bald head from the intense cold of the winter night, he ran out across the garden.  His shuffling feet, in their flapping old carpet slippers, forgot their rheumatism, and his shoulders dropped the weight of their seventy years.  He ran like a boy across the meadow, through the gap in the fence, and down the hill to the cabin by the spring.

All one side of it was in flames.  The fire was curling around the front door and bursting through the windows with fierce cracklings.  Dashing frantically around to the back door, he threw himself against it, shouting to know if any one was within.  A blinding rush of smoke was his only answer as he backed away from the overpowering heat, but something fell across the door-sill in a limp little heap.  It was Jonesy.

Dragging the child to a safe distance from the burning building, he ran back, fearing that some one else might be in danger, but this time the flames met him at the door, and it was impossible to go in.  His hoarse shouting roused the servants, but by the time they reached the cabin the roof had fallen in, and all danger of the fire spreading to other buildings was over.

While the professor was bending over Jonesy, trying to bring him back to consciousness, Miss Allison came running down the path.  She had an eiderdown quilt wrapped around her over her dressing-gown.  The shouts had awakened her, also, and she had slipped out as quietly as possible, not wishing to alarm her mother.

“How did it happen?” she demanded, breathlessly.  “Is the child badly burned?  Is any one else hurt?  Is the tramp in the cabin?”

No one gave any answer to her rapid questions.  The old professor shook his head, but did not look up.  He was bending over Jonesy, trying to restore him to consciousness.  He seemed to know the right things to do for him, and in a little while the child opened his eyes and looked around wonderingly.  In a few minutes he was able to tell what he knew about the fire.

It was not much, only a horrible recollection of being awakened by a feeling that he was choking in the thick smoke that filled the room; of hearing the boss swear at him to be quick and follow him or he would be burned to death.  Then there had been an awful moment of groping through the blinding, choking smoke, trying to find a way out.  The man sprang to a window and made his escape, but as the outside air rushed in through the opening he left, it seemed to fan the smoke instantly into flame.