Springing to the loft where the embers were falling from the burning roof, she quickly threw the beds and bedding from the window, and emptying trunks and chests conveyed their contents out of reach of the flames and of the burning brands which the wind was whirling from the roof. The loft was like a furnace, and the heat soon drove her, dripping with perspiration, to the lower room, where, for twenty minutes, she strained every nerve to drag out the movables. Large pieces of burning pine began to fall through the boarded ceiling about the lower rooms, and as the babe had been placed under a large dresser in the kitchen, it now became absolutely necessary to remove it. But where? The air was so bitter that nothing but the fierce excitement and rapid motion had preserved Mrs. Dalton's hands and feet from freezing. To expose the tender nursling to that direful cold was almost as cruel as leaving it to the mercy of the fire. A mother's wit is not long at fault where the safety of her child is concerned. Emptying out all the clothes from a large drawer which she had dragged a safe distance from the house, she lined it with blankets and placed the child inside, covering it well over with bedding, and keeping it well wrapped up till help should arrive. The roof was now burning like a brush heap; but aid was near at hand. As she passed out of the house for the last time, dragging a heavy chest of clothes, she looked once more despairingly up the clearing and saw a man running at full speed. It was McMurray. Her burdened heart uttered a deep thanksgiving, as another and another figure came skipping over the snow towards her burning house. She had not felt the intense cold, although without bonnet or shawl, and with hands bare and exposed to the biting air. The intense anxiety to save all she could had so diverted her thoughts from herself that she took no heed of the peril in which she stood from fire and frost. But now the reaction came; her knees trembled under her, she grew giddy and faint, and dark shadows swam before her. The three men sprang on the roof and called for water in vain; it had long been exhausted. "Snow! snow! Hand us up pails full of snow!" they shouted. It was bitter work filling the pails with frozen snow, but the two women (for Mrs. McMurray had now returned) scooped up pails full of snow with their bare hands and passed them to the men on the roof. By spreading this on the roof, and on the floor of the loft, the violence of the fire was checked. The men then cast away the smoldering rafters and flung them in the snow-drifts. The roof was gone, but the fire was at last subdued before it had destroyed the walls. Within one week from the time of the fire the neighboring settlers built a new roof for Mrs. Dalton in spite of the intense cold, and while it was building Mrs. D. and her household were sheltered at the nearest cabin.