And George returned to the fight once more. Had the men been working where it was cool, by their very numbers they could have checked the advance of the flames; but hot as it was, fully half who entered the conflict were overpowered by the heat in a very short time, or obliged to cease their exertions for a while, as George had done. Therefore, although fresh recruits were arriving each hour, not one-third of all the force there could be counted upon as able workers. It was an hour after George had cared for his horses, as he supposed, that the cripple whom he had engaged to do the work, approached where he was, by the side of Ralph, strengthening the banks of the ditch that carried off the escaping oil. "I went up to the shed," shouted the man, "but there wasn't any horses there, nor carriage either." "Where are they?" asked George, in bewilderment. "How should I know?" was the reply, in an angry tone. And then, before anything more could be said, a shout, almost of despair, arose from those who were working nearer the town-- "The waste oil has caught fire!" The oil which had been drawn off from the tanks, through the perforations made by the cannon balls, had been set on fire by the heat of the blazing stream by its side, and the flames were moving rapidly toward the two other large tanks in the immediate vicinity. CHAPTER XIII. A FRUITLESS SEARCH. Many conflagrations, caused by the lightning striking an oil-tank, have been known since the discovery of petroleum; but none had ever been so disastrous as the one of which the reader has had but an imperfect account. Forty-five thousand barrels of oil had been consumed or wasted up to the time as narrated in the previous chapter, and fully as much more was now threatened by the overflow, which had taken fire, and was shooting forth flames most dangerously near the other two large tanks. At the first alarm the entire force present left whatever they were working at to combat the new danger, when George and several of those who, with him, were directing the work, saw at once the peril to which the town was exposed by this sudden abandonment of the labor which had been performed for the purpose of presenting an impassable barrier to the angry flames. It was impossible that the now nearly exhausted workers could prevent the flames from attacking the two tanks upon which they were sweeping, and if vain labor was spent upon that quarter, the enemy would, beyond a doubt, gain possession of the town. To keep the men from neglecting the safety of their homes to try uselessly to save property which could easily be replaced, was absolutely necessary, and the length of time required to persuade them to return to the work they had first been engaged in would decide the fate of the village.