The Captain, wide awake enough by this time, jumped out of bed, carrying the blankets with him, and ran to the window. Opening it, he thrust out his head. The wind had changed to the eastward, and a thick fog had come in with it. The house was surrounded by a wet, black wall, but off to the west a red glow shone through it, now brighter and now fainter. The schoolhouse bell was turning somersaults in its excitement. Only once, since Captain Jerry had been janitor, had the schoolhouse bell been rung except in the performance of its regular duties. That once was on a night before the Fourth of July, when some mischievous youngsters climbed in at a window and proclaimed to sleeping Orham that Young America was celebrating the anniversary of its birth. Since then, on nights before the Fourth, Captain Jerry had slept in the schoolhouse, armed with a horsewhip and an ancient navy revolver. The revolver was strictly for show, and the horsewhip for use, but neither was called into service, for even if some dare-devil spirits did venture near the building, the Captain's snores, as he slumbered by the front door, were danger signals that could not be disregarded. But there was no flavor of the Fourth in the bell's note this night. Whoever the ringer might be, he was ringing as though it was his only hope for life, and the bell swung back and forth without a pause. The red glow in the fog brightened again as the Captain gazed at it. Captain Jerry came tumbling up the stairs, breathless and half dressed. “Where do you make it out to be?” he panted. “Somewhere's nigh the post-office. Looks 's if it might be Weeks's store. Where's Perez?” Captain Eri had lighted a lamp and was pulling on his boots, as he spoke. “Here I be!” shouted the missing member of the trio from the dining room below. “I'm all ready. Hurry up, Eri!” Captain Eri jumped into his trousers, slipped into a faded pea-jacket and clattered downstairs, followed by the wildly excited Jerry. “Good land, Perez!” he cried, as he came into the dining room, “I thought you said you was all ready!” Captain Perez paused in the vain attempt to make Captain Jerry's hat cover his own cranium and replied indignantly, “Well, I am, ain't I?” “Seems to me I'd put somethin' on my feet besides them socks, if I was you. You might catch cold.” Perez glanced down at his blue-yarn extremities in blank astonishment. “Well, now,” he exclaimed, “if I hain't forgot my boots!” “Well, git 'em on, and be quick. There's your hat. Give Jerry his.” The excited Perez vanished through the door of his chamber, and Captain Eri glanced at the chronometer; the time was a quarter after two.