"That horse blanket, Jim! bring it here quick, quick!" he shouted back to his servant. Then to the half-crazed woman, "Where is your baby? where did you leave it?" "In there, in there on the bed, oh, oh, it's burnin' all up! I forgot it, an' I couldn't get back." Eddie made one step backward, and ran his eye rapidly over the burning pile, calmly taking in the situation, considering whether the chances of success were sufficient to warrant the awful risk. It was the work of an instant to do that, snatch the blanket from Jim, wrap it around his person, and plunge in among the flames, smoke, and falling firebrands, regardless of the boy's frightened protest, "Oh, Mr. Eddie don't; you'll be killed! you'll burn all up!" He had looked into the cabin but a day or two before, and remembered in which corner stood the rude bed of the family, their only one. He groped his way to it, half suffocated by the heat and smoke, and in momentary dread of the falling in of the roof, reached it at last, and feeling about among the scanty coverings, laid hold of the child, which was either insensible or sound asleep. Taking it in his young, strong arms, holding it underneath the blanket, which he drew closer about his person, he rushed back again, stepping from the door just as the roof fell in with a crash. The woman snatched her babe, and its gallant rescuer fell fainting to the ground. A falling beam had grazed his head and struck him a heavy blow upon the shoulder. With a cry Jim sprang forward, dragged his young master out of reach of the flying sparks, the overpowering heat, and suffocating smoke, and dropping, blubbering, down by his side, tried to loosen his cravat. "Fetch some wattah!" he called, "quick dar, you ongrateful white trash! you gwine let young Marse Eddie die, when he done gone saved yo' baby from burnin' up?" "Take the gourd and run to the spring Celestia Ann; quick, quick as you kin go," said the mother hugging up her rescued child, and wiping a tear from her eye with the corner of a very dirty apron. "There ain't none," answered the child, "we uns ain't got nothin' left; it's all burnt up." But a keen, fresh air was already reviving our hero. "Take me home, Jim," he said faintly. "Stop that wagon," as one was heard rumbling down the road, still at some distance. "Hollo dar! jes stop an' take a passenger aboard!" shouted Jim, springing to his feet and rushing into the road, waving his cap above his head. "Hollo!" shouted back the other, "dat you Jim Yates? Burnin' down Smith's house. Dat's a plenepotentiary crime, dat is, sah!" "Oh go 'long, you fool, Pete White!" retorted Jim, as the other drew rein close at his side, "you bet you don't catch dis niggah a burnin' no houses. Spect ole Smith set de fire goin' hisself wid dat ole pipe o' his'n!" "An' it's clar burnt down to de ground," observed Pete, gazing with eager interest at the smouldering ruins. "What you s'pose dey's gwine to do for sheltah for dem po' chillen?"