Meanwhile the other two boys were releasing the frantic cattle.  It was no simple thing to do—­the poor creatures were so terrified.  There were two steers and a gentle-faced heifer.  The boys had made acquaintance with them the night before, and the poor things greeted them now with piteous lows of appeal.

“So, boss—­so boss—­so-o!” soothed Jot at the heifer’s head.  His trembling fingers caressed the smooth, fawn-colored nose, as, with the other hand, he untied her.  She crouched back at first and refused to pass that terrible flaming something on the way to safety outside.  But Jot pulled her along, talking to her all the way.

In less time than it takes to tell of it, the cattle were out of danger.

“Now the hens—­hurry, hurry, Jot!  I’m going to help Kent.  It mustn’t get to the hay upstairs!”

Thanks to Kent’s steady, tireless work, there was little danger of that now.  Already the flames were greatly subdued, and only sputtered aimlessly under the regular showers of water that fell upon them.  The two boys toiled over them patiently till just a blackened corner told that they had been there in the trig little barn.

It had been a short, sharp battle.  A moment’s indecision, a very little less determined effort and presence of mind, and nothing but a miracle could have saved the barn.  And then the house!  It stood so near—­what could have saved it?

It was an hour or more before Old Tilly would allow the live stock brought back into the barn.  They hovered anxiously over the blackened embers, for fear they might spring into life again.  But at last there seemed no danger, and presently the building settled back to quiet again, and the tired rescuers tried to snatch a little sleep in the hay.  Jot woke the others in the first dim daylight.

“Fire!  Fire!” he screamed.

“Where?  Where is it?” cried Kent, springing to his feet.

“Put—­it—­o-ut,” mumbled Old Tilly.

It was only a nightmare, but the boys could not doze again after it.

It was just as the sun was rising clear and beautiful that the boys came out from the barn, and as they caught sight of each other’s blackened faces in the dazzling light, they each gave way to a roar of laughter.  “Well, we all seem to be in the same boat,” said Kent, making for the pump and filling the pails one after the other.  “Here’s a pail apiece; that ought to do it for us.”  Then he went to one of the wheel baskets and brought back a crash towel and a generous piece of soap.  “Now lay to on yourselves, boys, and then we will see what we can scare up for breakfast.  I suppose there’s no getting into the house, so we’ll have to depend on ourselves.”  But here Kent noticed how particularly quiet Old Tilly was.