"I reckon
there won't be much left of it before we get to Boomville."
Demorest and Barker stared. "You fired it?" said Barker, trembling with
excitement.
"Yes," said Stacy. "I couldn't bear to leave the old rookery for coyotes
and wild-cats to gather in, so I touched her off before I left."
"But"--said Barker.
"But," repeated Stacy composedly. "Hallo! what's the matter with that
new plan of 'The Rest' that you're going to build, eh? You don't want
them BOTH."
"And you did this rather than leave the dear old cabin to strangers?"
said Barker, with kindling eyes. "Stacy, I didn't think you had that
poetry in you!"
"There's heaps in me, Barker boy, that you don't know, and I don't
exactly sabe myself."
"Only," continued the young fellow eagerly, "we ought to have ALL been
there! We ought to have made a solemn rite of it, you know,--a kind of
sacrifice. We ought to have poured a kind of libation on the ground!"
"I did sprinkle a little kerosene over it, I think," returned Stacy,
"just to help things along. But if you want to see her flaming, Barker,
you just run back to that last corner on the road beyond the big red
wood. That's the spot for a view."
As Barker--always devoted to a spectacle--swiftly disappeared the two
men faced each other. "Well, what does it all mean?" said Demorest
gravely.
"It means, old man," said Stacy suddenly, "that if we hadn't had nigger
luck, the same blind luck that sent us that strike, you and I and that
Barker over there would have been swirling in that smoke up to the
sky about two hours ago!" He stopped and added in a lower, but earnest
voice, "Look here, Phil! When I went out to fetch water this morning I
smelt something queer.
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