The prospective President turned red to his ears, and hastily removed his immaculate hands from where they had been resting upon the railing. And he did not hold up the train while he and his allies stopped to help save the town. The whistle gave a warning toot, the bell jangled, and the train slid away toward the next town, leaving Arline staring, tight-lipped, after it. “The darned chump--he'd 'a' made votes hand over fist if he'd called my bluff; but, I knew he wouldn't, soon as I seen his face. He ain't man enough.” “He's real good-lookin',” sighed Minnie, feebly attempting to release her arm from the grasp of her mistress. “And did you notice the fellow with the big yellow mustache? He kept eyin' me--” “Well, I don't wonder--but it ain't anything to your credit,” snapped Arline, facing her toward the hotel, “You do look like sin a-flyin', in that green dress, and with all that starch on your face. You git along to the house and mix that bread, first thing you do, and start a fire. And if I ain't back by that time, you go ahead with the supper; you know what to git. We're liable to have all the tables full, so you set all of 'em.” She was hurrying away, when the girl called to her. “Did you mean Mis' Fleetwood, when you said that about the woman burning? And do you s'pose she's really in the fire?” “You shut up and go along!” cried Arline roughly, under the stress of her own fears. “How in time's anybody going to tell, that's twenty miles away?” She left the street and went hurrying through back yards and across vacant lots, crawled through a wire fence, and so reached, without any roundabout method, the trail which led to the top of the bluff, where the whole town was breathlessly assembling. Her flat-chested, un-corseted figure merged into the haze as she half trotted up the steep road, swinging her arms like a man, her skirts flapping in the wind. As she went, she kept muttering to herself: “If she really is caught by the fire--and her alone--and Man more'n half drunk--” She whirled, and stood waiting for the horseman who was galloping up the trail behind her. “You going home, Man? You don't think it could git to your place, do you?” She shouted the questions at him as he pounded past. Manley, sallow white with terror, shook his head vaguely and swung his heavy quirt down upon the flanks of his horse. Arline lowered her head against the dust kicked into her face as he went tearing past her, and kept doggedly on. Some one came rattling up behind her with empty barrels dancing erratically in a wagon, and she left the trail to make room. The hostler from their own stable it was who drove, and at the creek ahead of them he stopped to fill the barrels. Arline passed him by and kept on. At the brow of the hill the women and children were gathered in a whimpering group. Arline joined them and gazed out over the prairie, where the smoke was rolling toward them, and, lifting here and there, let a flare of yellow through.