“Now, on my part,” declared Bluff, “I thought it must be the screech of a locomotive; because, you know, there’s a railroad line on both sides of the river right along up here.” “But there it is again,” Frank insisted; “and you can make out yelling now.” “Yes, and it comes out of there, away back from the river. See here, Frank,” observed Jerry, “we just can’t plunge into the woods, and make for that fire; can we?” “Now, my opinion is, there might be some other cross-road below here, and the fire is on that,” said Frank; “we’ll go a piece further, anyhow, and find out.” The others were quite willing to do anything Frank proposed, and so they again started to run at quite a good pace. It turned out just as he said; for about half a mile further down they suddenly came on a road that left the river highway, and turned abruptly into the hills. Besides, they could now see the fire itself, which, as usual, did not seem to be so very far away; though Frank knew how deceptive distances were apt to prove under such conditions. Turning into this smaller road, they kept on running. Now and then Frank would drop into a walk, for he knew that Will must be tiring, though the other would never have admitted the fact if he dropped in his tracks with fatigue. “Further than we thought, fellows!” gasped Bluff, who had to carry a heavy gun, and by now he almost wished he had left it on the boat. “But now we’ve come this far we’d better keep on; eh, Frank?” suggested Jerry. On that score the chums seemed to be agreed. Like all boys, they disliked very much to give up anything they had started to accomplish. All that hard running would go for nothing; and they were naturally curious to learn what sort of a fire it could be. “A barn, I reckon,” Jerry had said. “Perhaps it’s only a chicken coop,” Will had in his turn mentioned. “Now, I’d think it more likely a pig pen,” observed the weary Bluff, as he changed his gun from one hand to the other for the twentieth time, refusing to let Frank relieve him of it. “Jerry is right, according to my way of thinking,” Frank said. “The chances are that’s what it is. Perhaps it looked at one time as if the fire would jump to the farmer’s barn, too, and that was what all that shouting meant.” They finally drew closer to the scene, though Frank feared they had gone twice as far as seemed wise, under the circumstances. It was fully an hour after they had left the houseboat before they reached the place; and then it was to find the fire about out; with a dozen men, and as many women and children, gathered in clusters, talking it all over with the man who had lost his barns, and what new crop of hay he had just been putting in them, together with several cows that could not be rescued in time.