“You take the pail,” he cried.  “You fight the fire.”  And while Stanley looked puzzledly after him, Benito charged through a circle of spectators up the hill.  He did not know that his face was almost black; that his eyebrows and the little foreign moustache of which they had made fun at the mines was charred and grizzled.  He knew only that Alice might be in danger.  That the fire might have spread west as well as east and north.

As he sped up Washington street another loud explosion drummed against his ears.  A shout followed it.  Benito neither knew nor cared for its significance.  Five minutes later he stumbled across his own doorsill, calling his wife’s name.  There was no answer.  Frenziedly he shouted “Alice!  Alice!” till at last a neighbor answered him.

“She and Mrs. Stanley and the baby went to Preacher Taylor’s house.  Is the fire out?”

“No,” returned Benito.  Once more he plunged down hill, seized a bucket and began the interminable passing of water.  He looked about for Adrian but did not see him.  He became a machine, dully, persistently, desperately performing certain ever-repeated tasks.

Hours seemed to pass.  Then, of a sudden, something interrupted the accustomed trend.  He held out his hands and no bucket met it.  With a look of stupid surprise he stared at the man behind him.  He continued to hold out his hand.

“Wake up,” cried the other, and gave him a whack across the shoulders.  “Wake up, Benito, man.  The fire’s out.”

Robert Parker, whose hotel was a litter of smoking timbers, and Tom Maguire, owner of what once had been the Eldorado gambling house, were discussing their losses.

“Busted?” Parker asked.

“Cleaned!” Maguire answered.

“Goin’ to rebuild?”

“Yep.  And you?”

“Sartin.  Sure.  Soon as I can get the lumber and a loan.”

“Put her there, pard.”

Their hands met with a smack.

“That’s the spirit of San Francisco,” Ridley remarked.  “Well we’ve learned a lesson.  Next time we’ll be ready for this sort of thing.  Broderick’s planning already for an engine company.”

“I reckon,” Adrian commented as he joined the group, “a vigilance committee is what we need even more.”

To this Benito made no answer.  Into his mind flashed a memory of the trio that had left Thieves’ Hollow at daybreak.

CHAPTER XXVII

POLITICS AND A WARNING

Benito Windham rose reluctantly and stretched himself.  It was very comfortable in the living-room of the ranch house, where a fire crackled in the huge stone grate built by his grandfather’s Indian artisans.  Many of the valuable tapestries imported from Spain had been removed by McTurpin during his tenure, but even bare adobe walls were cheerful in the light of blazing logs, and rugs of native weave accorded well with the simple mission furniture.  In a great