For a moment Jim stood where bank and trestle met, stood undecided. There was nothing to do, yet he must do something, for it was his nature to do something. Nothing would save the trestle. He perceived that, though he hesitated to admit it. He saw that the work of incendiarism had been done efficiently; timbers had been well soaked with oil, and the match applied not in one spot but in scores of places. Except for a matter of thirty feet at the end where Jim stood the whole structure was flame-wrapped. From the very brook fire seemed to flow upward; here and there, twenty feet below, marsh grass burst into ruddy, living flower. Without plan or reason Jim started forward upon the trestle, as if to plunge headlong into the dancing, undulating, seething mass of destruction and stifle it with his hands. Marie, now at his side, clutched his arm to restrain him. He shook her off ungently, sprang forward. She kept at his side. Again he was forced to pause, shading his face from the heat that reached out to meet him. His eyes were for nothing but the fire; saw nothing aside from it. Waves of heat surged against him, forced him to draw back, and the very action of retreating cleared his head, restored him to something resembling calm. Instinct, impulse withdrew, leaving intellect in command. He thought of his father. What he saw before him was his father’s—Clothespin Jimmy’s—life-work disappearing in flames. He had been given his father’s shoes. How had he filled them? The destruction of this trestle was the destruction of the Ashe Clothespin Company. He should have foreseen this danger, guarded against it adequately. In that he had failed. Again Marie was at his side. “Come back,” she said. “You can do no good.” He did not notice her, but stepped forward again, forcing himself against the heat. She clung to him. “You can’t put it out,” she said again. “Come back out of danger.” He turned on her, eyes flashing, jaw set. “Put it out!” he said, harshly. “I’m not thinking about putting it out. It’s gone!” He was Sudden Jim now, not defeated, still fighting. “Go back and tell Moran you left me figuring how to get logs from there to here. And tell him I’m going to do it. Tell him if he’d burned the woods I’d find some way to make logs out of the ashes.” Presently he spoke again—to himself. “I wish Nelson was here,” he said. He was trying to figure construction, needed his millwright’s advice. In that moment Clothespin Jimmy might have felt satisfaction in his son, for young Jim had forgotten the blow just dealt him, had forgotten the fire that raged at his feet. His thoughts dealt only with the future. He wasted no moment in discouragement, though he might well have been discouraged. One thought he held: Logs must cross the gap before him. But how? His fingers doubled into determined fists. “It can be done,” he said, “and I’ll find the way!”