"If you can't get out I know you are not gone, Bill," he replied with a laugh, but it was a laugh of despair rather than of merriment. "Don't give up. Once more. You are coming. What did I tell you?" And again he laughed, but not in despair. We were now at the wall, at the very hole through which the sheep were wont to come in. "You first, this time, Bill. Sheer off to the left. The bushes are not more than fifteen feet away." With but little difficulty I squeezed through the opening. And now I was in a hot and dazzling glare. A breeze had sprung up with the flames, and behind me was a roar, and a crash of the falling beams. I looked not about me, but straight ahead toward the thicket, now waving as if swept by a strong wind; and within a minute after reaching the outer air I was crawling through a thick clump of blackberry briars, with Alf close upon my heels. We soon came upon a sheep-walk covered with briars, and now we could make faster time. The Aimes boys were still firing into the burning house, and it was evident that they had not discovered our escape. "We can walk now," Alf whispered. "Turn down here to the right and keep the shumac bushes between us and them. Now we are all right." Not another word was spoken until we had reached a knoll, some distance away. Then we halted and looked back. And now the old house was but a blazing heap. Alf was peeping about through the trees, and suddenly his gaze was set. He cocked his gun and brought it to his shoulder. "No," I said. "You will only regret it." I grasped the gun and both hammers fell upon my hand. "Get back!" he commanded. "No," I said, my hand still under the hammers. "You must not." He looked hard at me for a moment and then suffered me to take the gun. The fire was now dying, and, looking to the left, whence the firing had come, I saw two of the Aimes boys standing under a tree. "Bill, I could kill both of them," Alf said, in a sorrowful voice. "I know, my dear boy, but you must not. You would always regret it. We will let the law take charge of them to-morrow." "Not to-morrow, Bill, but to-night. To-morrow they will be gone." "All right; just as you say. Where is the nearest officer?" "A deputy sheriff lives about two miles from here, off to the right of our road home. Come on." We came into the road after making a circuit through the woods, and hastened onward. And we must have gone nearly half the distance to the deputy's house when we heard the Aimes boys coming behind us, drunk and whooping. "They think we are burnt up," said Alf; "but we'll show them. Let's get aside into the bushes, and when they come along we'll let them have it." "We will get aside into the bushes," said I, "but we will not let them have it. Come over this side. Let me have your gun."