Shortly after midnight Peter was awakened with lantern light in his eyes, and he sprang out of bed, smelling the fog and knowing that case weather had come.

He stumbled into his overalls and followed his father and Gus down the stairs and out into the yard where Vern Barton, Dutchy Bloom and others were waiting. The fog was so thick that a man might have lost his way in his own barnyard. The lanterns looked like fox fire at twenty feet.

Stud led the way and the others followed, Indian file, down the slushy lane to the tobacco sheds. The mist, which had rolled northward flooding the valley from hilltop to hilltop, enveloped them in a thick, white blanket, muffled their footsteps, and drowned their voices with its weight of silence. Once when the fog lifted momentarily Peter could see lights at other farm houses, other lanterns moving, the whole countryside astir.

Stud rolled back the doors of the tobacco shed on creaking rollers and the men flowed in through the wide, dark opening, went up among the beams, began methodically and rapidly to lower the heavily-laden laths of tobacco to the men below who piled them log-cabin fashion on the dirt floor. Not a moment could be lost. Tobacco leaves which had been as brittle as spun glass five hours before were now as pliable as brown satin. Before a cold wind could lift the fog, again freezing the leaves, the men must pile and protect tons of tobacco. Later it would be stripped from the stalk, bundled and hauled to the warehouses of the tobacco buyers in Brailsford Junction.

There was a breath of false spring in the air. The huge shadows cast by the men sprang up the walls and fell noiselessly. And Peter, surefooted as a cat among the beams, was jousting with shadows while he worked. Would he come back to the farm if this ten day layoff were extended, or would he catch a train for Chicago? Where would he forget Maxine the more easily? Where would he find happiness again?

On this night of fog, smelling of oak woods, of thawing earth and maple sap; surrounded by men he had known since childhood; watching his father moving gigantically in lantern light, he wrestled with his problems. What if the "Trailer" shut down for good as it easily might? Would he come back to this farm where his father and grandfather had labored before him, inherit these woods and fields, and marshes? Hunt ducks in the fall, plow the land in the spring, help at the birthing of calves and lambs and foals? He would introduce new machinery, build a new house, perhaps, high on one of the hills. Almost he was resigned to the idea. He thought his fate could have been worse.

Shortly before dawn, Early Ann came with black coffee and thick sausage sandwiches and slabs of buttered coffee cake. The men ate greedily after the hard night's work. They paid crude compliments to the girl who stood with graniteware coffeepot waiting to refill their cups.

Early Ann had brought something special for Peter. When none of the others were looking she slipped a little white hickorynut cake with white frosting into Peter's dirty hand.

"You take the first bite," he said, holding the cake to her lips.

***

When his ten days were up Peter almost wished that he did not have to go back to the factory again. He had been tinkering around with the thrashing machine, oiling the parts and tightening a nut here and there. He hoped that he might be thrashing boss again next summer.

2

"You might at least think of Early Ann," Stud's wife had said. He had thought of her until his spirit was tired, argued the problem with himself, tossed in his sleep.

Now he was almost happy to have another grievance to occupy his mind. Momentarily Early Ann was forgotten.

The Percheron had been grained too heavily and had not been given sufficient exercise. What else might be the matter with the great beast, the Lord alone knew.

"You and me, both!" Stud said to the sick stallion. "I wish all I had the matter with me was a belly ache."

Doc Carlyle was out of town, so it was up to Brailsford to save the horse,—no easy task. Teddy Roosevelt's head drooped almost to the floor; his big, shining barrel was blown, and his eyes were dull and lifeless. As Stanley and Gus stood watching the unfortunate animal he suddenly jerked up his head, pawed the floor, and tried to climb into the manger with his front feet.

"Poor old bastard," said Gus.

"Run get the pig bladder and elder shoot," Stanley said. "I'll fix some turpentine and linseed oil."

The turpentine made the stallion frantic. He broke into a cold sweat, plunged around and around his pen, threw himself down with a crash, rolled over and got up again, dashed headlong into the planks of his stall, stood on his hind legs pawing the air wildly, screamed and foamed at the mouth, fell to the floor—his gigantic muscles contracting spasmodically under his gleaming black hide. There was a mad, frightened light in his eyes.

"It'd be like losing a member of the family," Gus said.

"We've got to save him," Brailsford cried. "Get Sarah to put over a boiler of water. And bring the cayenne pepper and baking soda and barbadoes aloes off the medicine shelf."

All night Stanley Brailsford worked over the Percheron, carried steaming blankets to cover the heaving body, forced whiskey down the terrified animal's throat, tried to soothe the brute by petting him and talking to him as he would a sick child. He fixed himself a bed on the feed box and tried to snatch a few winks of sleep.

Shortly after midnight a cold wind made the lantern flicker. Stud Brailsford looked up to see Early Ann with coffee pot and sandwiches.

"I couldn't sleep," she said. "How's the stallion?"

"Ain't kicking around so bad."

Early Ann gazed thoughtfully at the horse for several moments.

"Probably stomach staggers," she said.

"How'd you know?"

"I've taken care of 'em before."

The man wolfed his sandwiches and drank his scalding black coffee. Early Ann went into the stall, dropped to her knees beside the stallion and began to pet his quivering shoulder. His coat was rumpled and full of straw, his heavy legs listless. The girl got the curry comb and began to curry very gently. She put a gunny-sack over the Percheron's head to shade his eyes from the lantern light.

"You're quite a hand with a sick stallion."

"Got to pamper 'em like you do all males."

"You'll make a great wife for some lucky farmer."

"I'm going to try," the girl said earnestly. "I'm sewing things against the day."

"Wish I was twenty years younger."

"That'd be two years before I was born."

They were silent for several minutes, Early Ann currying the stallion, Stanley brooding and munching his sandwiches. Once the Percheron tried to get to his knees, then sank back wearily in the straw.

"You'll be all right," Stanley told the big animal. "You ain't going to die. You're a big husky critter that can stand all kinds of belly aches."

The girl picked up the coffee pot and started for the door.

"Wait," the man said. He came quickly to her side and put his arm around her. Trembling and frightened she tried to get away. The rasping breath of the stallion, the strange light, and the huge arm around her waist made her feel faint.

"I can't," she said.

"Why not?"

"I can't do anything like that to Sarah, and to you and me."

"No," the man said. "I suppose you can't."

After she had gone Stud tried to sleep, but could not. Mice ventured out into the ring of light and nibbled at kernels of corn. The wind shoved at the door and rattled the black window panes. The animals stirred in their sleep, sighed deeply, dreamed of lush green pastures.

At half past three in the morning the stallion had another bad spell, and Stud thought he was going to die. He wished that he had a hypodermic needle so that he could puncture the gut at the spot where it had become the most distended. He felt helpless in the face of death. He pleaded with the stallion not to die.

Strange how big male things could die so easily. They were so strong and fiery and full of life one moment and dead the next. You could breed them to size, color, speed or endurance but you couldn't breed them against death. It made Stud Brailsford think of his own mortality watching the stallion hour by hour. He wished again that he could leave a dozen boys to propagate his kind.

"Don't die," he said. "Don't die, big fellow."

***

All day they tended the stallion, and the next night Stanley again insisted upon watching throughout the night. This time Early Ann brought coffee and sandwiches before the rest of the family went to bed. Stanley said nothing but pulled the girl roughly to him.

"No, no," she whispered. "Don't, Mr. Brailsford, please. I ain't strong enough to fight you, Stanley, please."

She began to cry, so he let her go, unharmed. She did not leave immediately, but waited to pour him another cup of coffee.

She wondered if he were asking too much, if other girls were so virtuous. She wondered if she should be kind to this unhappy man. But before she could answer these questions they saw the first flames and caught the smell of burning hay.

3

Looking back upon that night of wind and gusty rain when the Brailsford barn burned like a pile of dry shavings in a forest fire, Sarah sometimes wondered what blind impulse had sent her through the smoke and flames to save the twin Percheron colts. She thought that perhaps it was her feeling of protection for young things. She couldn't bear to think of the colts being burned.

"Save yourself, Mother," Brailsford had cried above the roaring fire, struggling vainly to save the stallion; pleading, whipping and cajoling. At last he left the inert sire, rushed to the box stall of Napoleon and led the bull to safety.

"Help Gus with the cows down at the other end," Stud shouted to his wife. "I'll get the horses."

He went in among the fire-crazed mares and geldings, old work horses who were faithful and quiet in the field but who were now leaping, terrified, wild animals, straining at their halter ropes, pawing the floor, and shying like unbroken yearlings at the thunder of the flames. Early Ann led the three ponies into the tobacco shed, then ran like the wind to the telephone in the kitchen.

"Hurry, it's the Brailsford barn," she cried. "Take the short cut over Barton's hill."

Vern Barton, Ole Oleson and Dutchy Bloom were carrying water from the stock tanks. Sarah and Gus were leading out the cows.

The big flames ran in sheets up the curving walls of the wooden silo, burst like a volcano through the peaked roof, cracked and thundered like a kettle drum in the half-empty cylinder. The resinous siding of the barn burned like a fire of pine knots, kindling the hand-hewn oak and hickory timbers cut from the forest with axe and adz fifty years before.

Cows bawled. Pigeons and sparrows shot out like flaming rockets and fell into the fields. Chickens squawked as they tumbled from the building, ran around in circles like fighting cocks, or flew back crazily into the scorching flames. A mother cat carrying a singed kitten in her mouth stalked out of the barn, her eyes gleaming like green coals. Ganders added their hiss to the hiss of the fire, men shouted and women screamed.

In the hub-bub that went on about him Stud alone kept a clear head. He ordered the men to form a bucket line, sent others for the spray wagon which was used to throw a small stream on the adjoining buildings, rushed in again and again after horses. It was while he was leading out the last, maddened gelding that he was all but caught in the passageway by the rearing, screaming beast. He could hear Sarah calling him, beside herself with fear. He could see the flame licking at the edges of the doorway and eating at the lintel.

"Steady, boy. Steady."

He patted the nervous shoulder, talked quietly to the frantic animal. Slowly the horse subsided, seemed to listen, followed Stud in a dash through the door not a moment too soon as the flaming lintel came crashing down behind them.

When the fire reached the haymow there was a flare and flash almost like an explosion as the dust and loose hay ignited. All the colors from blue-white to crimson played across the surface of the hay. Then the fifty tons of timothy, alfalfa, and clover settled down to a forty-eight hour blaze. Flame and smoke sucked and twisted up the hay chutes like dust in a tornado. These blasts cut through the shingled roof like a dozen blow-torches and spurted their yellow pennants skyward. The flames licked and bellied in the wind, belched from the open door of the loft with the hollow intonation of a big gun.

"Help pull the hayfork down," cried Gus. He said in after years that he had intended to fasten barrels of water to the fork, run them down the fork track, and dump them on the flame. Before he could attempt the impractical scheme the ropes had burned and the fork had fallen with a crash, imbedding itself in the snow and mud.

Finally the fire department arrived. The big dapple grays had run four miles dragging the heavy fire engine through the slushy snow. They galloped into the barnyard lathered and panting, the red wheels and brass mountings of their engine flashing in the fire-light, steam and smoke belching from the funnel.

"Unwind the hose, boys," shouted Hank Vetter. "Where's the water, Stud?"

"We'll use the tanks and then the cistern," Stud roared. "I got the gasoline engine pumping from the well."

But all these sources were soon insufficient for the two inch hose through which the fire engine forced its stream. They led the hose to the creek, chopped a hole through the ice, and began to pump from the deep hole beside the mill. The water sprayed upon the burning roof, was shot in through the loft door; hissed into the inferno leaving scarcely a trace.

"Look out!" cried Stud. "There goes the roof!" It fell with a mighty crash throwing embers high into the air, shooting flames seventy-five feet above the barn: blue, yellow, and red against the inky sky; lighting up the countryside from Cottonwood Hill to Charley's Bluff. Another fire was burning on the frozen lake, the flames pointing downward toward the center of the earth.

Then the timbers holding up the hay collapsed and half-a-hundred tons of burning grass fell into the stables. The great stallion screamed once and then was still.

Sarah came over to comfort Stud.

"We've got each other and most of the stock," she said.

"We'll make it somehow, Mother. We'll start all over."

"I'll go to the house now and fix something for the firemen."

"I guess you might as well."

Hank Vetter, chief of the volunteers, left his engine and came over to where Stud was listening to the condolences of his neighbors.

"How'd it start?" yelled Hank.

"Darned if I know," said Stud, scratching his singed head. "I was tending a sick stallion and...."

"Was you smoking?" asked Hank.

"Never smoked around the barns in my life."

"Didn't tip over the lantern?"

"Lantern was hanging from a peg. Never touched the lantern."

"Well, it couldn't have started by itself," said Hank. "Let's look around."

They had taken less than a dozen steps down the lane when a figure started up from behind a stump, jumped the fence, crashed down the hill toward the lake, and began to skirt the bay.

"It's Joe Valentine," shouted Early Ann.

"This is my job," Stud cried, dashing after the fleeing figure.

Hearing shouts, Joe Valentine decided to risk the shortest way to Lake House Point. He leaped onto the melting ice and ran and stumbled two hundred yards out from the shore. They saw him clearly in the light of the burning barn as he crashed through into the black water and went down; and although they watched the dark hole in the ice for twenty minutes he did not come up again.

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BOOK FIVE

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