"Here's how it was, Little Buck," he said in a shaken drawl. "A fire was started up in every cove, it seemed to me, at about the same time. As soon as I seed it, I made a streak fo' the whistle-cord. Somebody slipped up and grabbed me from ahind o' me, and throwed me down hard. This man was half-drunk, but he was as strong as a bear all the same, and I jest couldn't git loose to save my life. Three other men carried bucket atter bucket o' mile-ile upstairs, and poured it out, and 'en set it afire. When the ile it was a-burnin' good, the big man he le' me go. "I tried awful hard to put the fire out, Little Buck, but I jest couldn't do it. The water I throwed on the burnin' ile didn't do nothin' but spread the fire. Then I made fo' the whistle-cord ag'in, and this time I got to it. I'd done blowed one long blow, and was a-startin' to blow ag'in, when the same man 'at grabbed me afore grabbed me and throwed me out o' the ingyne-room door and kep' me out. Mr. Weaver and them 'ar other furriners they run in then, but they met about twenty men wi' clubs, and they couldn't do nothin'. And purty soon it was too late to even try to save anything. Was the mill inshored, Little Buck?" "The insurance men were to be out tomorrow," Little Buck Wolfe answered hoarsely. "They'd refused the risk twice before. But you didn't tell me who set the mill and woods on fire, Nathan." "I hates to tell ye, Little Buck," sadly, "but you're plum' shore to find it out anyhow. It was our own people. They must ha' broke jail. It was pap who grabbed me the twicet, and it was Unc' Brian Wolfe and our brother Oliver and Cat-Eye Mayfield who carried the ile upstairs and set the mill afire. The whole outfit of 'em was a-drinkin' hard." Young Wolfe straightened under this, the greatest blow of his life, and folded his arms across his deep, broad chest. He stared toward the furnaces that lighted the whole of the basin as bright as noonday and roared as though they were Gehennas filled with lost souls; his hopes were all in those fires and burning, burning to gray ashes. Everything was gone. The Masons were left practically penniless in their old days; it was this, perhaps, that hurt him most--he could have wept over it. There had come to his whitened countenance a look that kept away even those of his friends and kinsmen who loved him best. Suddenly there appeared from the bush to the eastward the Wolfe clan and Cat-Eye Mayfield. They reeled a little, and they were full of defiance. The Wolfes were now armed with rifles, which they had taken from their homes after their womenfolk and children had gone to the burning mill. They halted a few rods from the awed multitude. Their leader, staggering for the first time under alcoholic influence, shook his great fist toward the man who was losing most, and lifted his Goliath voice in tones of black triumph: "Who wins now?"