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When the little Benjamin Blair, fugitive, had literally taken to the earth, it was with definite knowledge of the territory he was entering.  He had often explored its depths with childish curiosity, to the distress of his mother and the disgust of the rightful owner, the mongrel dog.  Retreating to the farther end of the cave, the instinct of self-preservation set hands and feet to work like the claws of a gopher, filling with loose dirt the narrow passage through which he had entered.  Panting and perspiring with the effort, choked with the dust he raised, all but suffocated, he dug until his strength gave out; then, curling up in his narrow quarters, he lay listening.  At first he heard nothing, not even a sound from the dog; and he wondered at the fact.  He could not believe that Tom Blair would leave him in peace, and he breathlessly awaited the first tap of an instrument against his retreat.  A minute passed, lengthened to five—­to ten—­and with the quick impatience of childhood he started to learn the reason of the delay.  His active little body revolved in its nest.  In the darkness a wiry arm scratched at the recently erected barricade.  A head with a tousled mass of hair poked its way into the opening, crowded forward a foot—­two feet, then stopped, the whole body quivering.  He had passed the curve, and of a sudden it was as though he had opened the door of a furnace and gazed inside.  Instead of the familiar room, a great sheet of flame walled him in.  Instead of silence, a roar as of a hurricane was in his ears.  Never in his life had he seen a great fire, but instantly he understood.  Instantly the instinctive animal terror of fire gripped him; he retreated to the very depths of the kennel, and burying his small head in his arms lay still.  But not even then, child though he was, did he utter a cry.  The endurance which had made Jennie Blair stare death impassively in the face was part and parcel of his nature.

For the space of perhaps a minute Ben lay motionless.  Louder than before came to his ears the roar of the fire.  Occasionally a hot tongue of flame intruded mockingly into the mouth of his retreat.  The confined air about him grew close, narcotic.  He expected to die, and with the premonition of death an abnormal activity came to the child-brain.  Whatever knowledge he possessed of death was connected with his mother.  It was she who had given him his vague impression of another life.  She herself, as she lay silent and unresponsive, had been the first concrete example of it.  Inevitably thought of her came to him now,—­practical, material thought, crowding from his brain the blind terror that had been its predecessor.  Where was his mother now?  He pictured again the furnace into which he had gazed from the mouth of the kennel.  Though perhaps she would not feel it, she would be burned—­burned to a crisp—­destroyed like the fuel he had tossed into the makeshift stove!