Frank was almost appalled when he reached the doorway. The whole clearing was thick with smoke, out of which there shot up a furious wall of fire that rose and fell with a crackle resembling volleys of riflery and a roaring even more disconcerting. What was worse, it seemed to be creeping into the thick bush behind the house, and Harry, running a few paces toward the corner of the building, stopped aghast with the red light flickering on his dismayed face. "Dad promised he'd get Webster's slashing burned, but it wasn't in the contract that we'd burn off his house," he said. "We'll have to hustle. See if there's an ax and grubhoe in that woodshed." Frank found the tools, and while he attacked the larger bushes near the back of the house, Harry began to cut down the undergrowth in front of it. By and by Frank came back and they dragged the brush away toward the clearing where it could burn harmlessly, but the smoke grew more blinding and every now and then a shower of sparks fell about the boys. Fires sprang up among the underbrush, and falling upon them with the ax and spade they savagely thrashed them out. Frank burned his hands in doing so, but there was no time to trouble about that and he toiled on, coughing and choking, until at last they were forced to stop for breath. They stood close in front of the house, with a mass of withered fern and half-burned brush smoldering in front of them, while a sheet of fire rose and fell amidst dense clouds of smoke behind the building. The daylight appeared to be dying out, but Frank could not be sure of that, because it was almost dark one moment as the smoke rolled about them and the next they stood dazzled by a flood of radiance. "We have done 'most all we can," said Harry wearily. "It was the wind getting up that made the trouble--I should have noticed it--but if it stands for the next half hour we ought to save the house. The fire's eating back into the bush all the while." "Should we get any of the things out?" Frank asked. "I'm not smart at handling hot stoves, and there's mighty little else in the place," Harry answered with a laugh. "I wouldn't bid a dollar for Webster's pans and crockery, and he made the table and the two chairs. Still, I don't know any reason why we shouldn't sling them out." Just then the smoke rolled down about the boys in a blinding cloud; there was a great snapping and crackling, and a shower of blazing fragments drove them back thirty or forty yards across the clearing. Presently the smoke thinned, and a row of stripped trunks behind the house was outlined against a tremendous sheet of flame. Frank took off his hat and shook a few red embers from the crown of it. "When we were getting those rags I noticed a keg behind them," he said. "A keg?" said Harry sharply. "A little keg. It looked thick and strongly made." The red light struck full upon Harry's face, and Frank saw that consternation was stamped upon it.