As the night wore on, the passers-by appeared at rarer intervals, and the snow, undisturbed by man or beast, allowed itself to be whirled and twisted by the wind into fantastic shapes, that changed with every fresh gust. One o’clock sounded from many a brazen tongue, and the wind, as if it heard in the sharp, vibrant note a new signal, seemed to grow suddenly in strength and swept across the city with fiercer and louder blasts, while the snow fell in blinding masses on roof and pavement. The same wind coming with awful fury up the broad, deserted avenue, struck with full force against the splendid hotel, and pouring through the half-open window in the dimly lighted room set the white window-curtain swaying and flapping with renewed life. “An awful night for a fire!” muttered a belated citizen, as he mounted his doorstep and shook the snow from his clothing in his marble-tiled vestibule. It was indeed an awful night for a fire, but the cold and weary citizen dismissed all anxiety from his mind, and sought his bed, happy in the knowledge that there were scattered about the great sleeping city fire-engines, with swift horses to draw them, and companies of vigilant, courageous men ready to hurry to the scene of disaster at a moment’s warning. And very soon the belated citizen slept too, while the storm outside raged with increased fury, and the snow swept down from the heavens and was piled in great drifts beneath the shadows of the tall building. And down in Chief Trask’s quarters nearly a mile away Bruce Decker slumbered peacefully, with his turnout on the floor beside him, while the horses stamped uneasily in their stalls, and the two men on watch sat close to the stove and talked in low tones about fires that they had known on just such windy, snowy nights in years gone by. Outside the truck-house the wind howled dismally, and the snow swept through the street in pitiless, blinding gusts, while up-town the same blasts paused for a moment in their northerly flight to play with the white window-curtain that was swinging and flapping now with increased violence in the half-lighted chamber. And throughout the storm Bruce slept as calmly as a child, knowing nothing of all that that window-curtain meant for him. A gust fiercer than the others tore the light band which held the curtain to the wall and sent it fluttering against the gas jet. It blazed up and caught the woodwork about the window and then another gust of wind, pausing in its swift flight to the far north, scattered the blazing particles about the room, and fanned the flames that were eating their way through the handsome woodwork. Outside, beneath the window where the curtain had flapped for a moment before, the snow lay in huge untrodden drifts. There was no one there to note the blaze which had started in the room on the fifth floor, nor was there any chance watcher in the silent houses over the way to give the alarm.