Bells clanged. Women screamed. Dogs howled. Men yelled for "help! help! help!" A red glare filled the valley. Smoke hid the moon. "The jail is on fire! The prisoner will burn!" The whole village was violently astir. Yet Doby could not move. He was frozen. A series of malicious chuckles, a burst of derisive laughter, wild shouts of defiance echoed along the hillside. And the escaped prisoner--the fire-bug--glad to find some one to vent his fury upon, came plunging toward the boy. The red eyes, the jagged teeth, the outstretched claws, in movement, broke the spell upon him. He leaped aside to save himself. There was no time to draw his knife. He flipped the empty bucket wrong side up, over the drunkard's head. Surprised and blinded, the man clutched and tore at the bail under his chin. He had trouble in freeing himself. In that moment of respite Doby flew down-hill like blowing tumbleweed. He sprang into the flatboat and flung up the barricade. But there was no danger. The prisoner--a prisoner no longer--did not follow. He fled into the wilderness never to return. John Francis Dufour directed the men in putting out the fire. He promised them another jail in case another bad man came to town. He reassured the women. He cuddled the frightened children. For a second time that day he quieted his village. Doby, still wide awake, stuck close to the boat and to his father. No more running around at night! He thought these matters over. If one small bottle of mildest wine had set a thousand folks into a turmoil twice within twelve hours, what might not a big jug of genuine "firewater" have done? "I have decided," he murmured, when at last he became as quiet and as drowsy as the village of Vevay, "that I'll take my stand with the men who say, 'Down with the demon, RUM!'" VIII GOIN' TO MEETIN' _Circuit-riding over the "Buffalo Trace"_ ON the flat top of the stump by the log-cabin door was a trencher of soft soap. By its side stood a big gourd dipper of spring water. A wash-trough, made from a five-foot section of oak-tree trunk which had been burnt and scraped through the center to hollow it out like a tub, was closer to the door, almost on its threshold. This home-made tub was steaming with ten gallons or so of hot water. A hand-woven towel hung over its edge. Obadiah Holman sat on the rail fence and viewed these articles with disfavor. He did not like the look of things. It was not his cabin nor his stump. His family were visitors here. They had floated down the Ohio River from Pittsburg to the settlements where the Big Falls stretched across the stream. The rainbow mist above the tumbled beauty of the rapids marked the end of the water road. Boats could go no farther. So all were being unloaded, and a strong party of emigrants were making up a wagon-train to take the trail across Indiana to the fort at Vincennes.