Cherry showed that he felt the stifling atmosphere, too. He tossed his proud head and snorted. Long strings of froth dripped from his bit, and his whole body had turned dark with sweat. Mr. Parlow might have felt doubtful of the horse’s well-being had he seen Cherry now. The hardware dealer drove straight on. He looked out for the horse’s pace, for he was a careful driver, but he was out for no pleasure jaunt. There was work for the horse to do. Joseph Stagg knew the country hereabout perfectly. From boyhood he had hunted, fished, and tramped all over the township. He was still five miles from the camp, approaching it by a roundabout way. The horse’s hoofs rang sharply over the stony path. Presently they capped a little ridge and started down into a hollow. Not until they were over the ridge was Mr. Stagg aware that the hollow was filled, chokingly filled, with billowy white smoke. There was, too, a crackling sound in the air. V-points of red and yellow flame suddenly flecked the bole of a tall, dead pine beside the path, and right ahead. Another man—one as cautious as the hardware merchant notoriously was—would have pulled the horse down to a walk. But Joseph Stagg’s cautiousness had been flung to the winds. Instead, he shouted to Cherry, and the beast increased his stride. The man knew that hollow well. At the bottom flowed Codler’s Creek, a larger stream than West Brook. Indeed, West Brook joined its waters with Codler’s Creek. The fire must have come into this cut, too. Then, in all probability, a couple of thousand acres of standing timber were afire on this side of the mountain! Ten rods further on the horse snorted, stumbled, and tried to stop. A writhing, flaming snake—a burning branch—plunged down through the smoke directly ahead. “Go on!” shouted Joseph Stagg, with a sharpness that would ordinarily have set Cherry off at a gallop. But, as the snorting creature still shied, the man seized the whip and lashed poor Cherry cruelly along his flank. At that the horse went mad. He plunged forward, leaped the blazing brand, and galloped down the road at a perilous gait. The man tried neither to soothe him nor to retard the pace. The smoke swirled around them. The driver could not see ten feet beyond the horse’s nose. If a tree should fall across the track, disaster was certain. But this catastrophe did not occur. Within a few furlongs, however, flames danced ahead on either side of the road. “The bridge!” gasped Joseph Stagg. The bridge over the creek was a wooden structure with a rustic railing on either hand. Flames had seized upon this and were streaming up from the rails. It was fortunate that there was so little wind. The flames were perpendicular and rose, as Joseph Stagg sat in the buckboard, higher than his head. The man leaned forward and once more laid the whip along Cherry’s flank. Later, Mr. Parlow was destined to mark both those welts and to vow that “Joseph Stagg did not know how to treat a horse!”