"Great land of Goshen!" he cried. "Pashy, are you hurt?"
"Oh, Perez!" gasped the fallen one. "Oh, Perez!"
This pitiful appeal had such an effect upon the Captain that he dropped upon his knees and, raising Miss Davis' head in his hands, begged her to say she wasn't killed. After some little time she obligingly complied, and then, having regained her breath, explained the situation.
What had happened was this: The fox, having selected his victim the rooster, had rendered it helpless, and was pushing it out of the hole ahead of him. The Captain had struck the rooster just as Miss Patience opened the door, and the fox, seizing this chance of escape, had dodged by the lady, upsetting her as he went.
"Well," she said, laughing, "there's no great harm done. I'm sorry for the rooster, but I guess the fox had fixed him anyway. Oh, my soul and body! look there!"
Perez turned, looked as directed, and saw the henhouse in flames.
The lighted lamp, which Miss Patience had dropped as she fell, lay broken on the floor, and the blazing oil had run in every direction. The flames were making such headway that they both saw there was practically no chance of saving the building. The frightened hens were huddled in the furthest corner, gazing stupidly at the fire.
"Oh, those poor Leghorns!" wailed Miss Patience. "Those hens Mrs. Mayo thought the world of, and left me to look out for. Last thing she asked me was to be sure they was fed. And now they'll be all burned up! What SHALL I do?"
Here the lady began to cry.
"Pashy!" roared the Captain, whom the sight of his charmer's tears had driven almost wild, "don't say another word. I'll save them hens or git cooked along with 'em!"
And turning up his coat collar, as though he was going into a refrigerator instead of a burning building, Captain Perez sprang through the door.
Miss Davis screamed wildly to him to come back, and danced about, wringing her hands. The interior of the henhouse was now a mass of black smoke, from which the voices of the Captain and the Leghorns floated in a discordant medley, something like this:
"Hold still, you lunatics! ('Squawk! squawk!') Druther be roasted than have me catch you, hadn't you? ('Squawk! squawk!') A--kershew! Land!
I'm smothered! NOW I've got you! Thunderation! Hold STILL! HOLD STILL, I tell you!"
Just as the agonized Miss Patience was on the point of fainting, the little window at the back of the shanty was thrown open and two hens, like feathered comets, shot through it. Then the red face of the Captain appeared for an instant as he caught his breath with a "Woosh!" and dived back again. This performance was repeated six times, the Captain's language and the compliments he paid the hens becoming more picturesque every moment.
At length he announced, "That's all, thank goodness!" and began to climb through the window. This was a difficult task; for the window was narrow and, in spite of what Captain Eri had called his "ingy-rubber" make up, Captain Perez stuck fast.
"Catch hold of my hands and haul, will you, Pashy?" he pleaded. "That's it; pull hard! It's gittin' sort of muggy in behind here. I'll never complain at havin' cold feet ag'in if I git out of this. Now, then! Ugh!
Here we be!"
He came out with a jerk, like a cork out of a bottle, and rolled on the ground at his lady's feet.
"Oh, Perez!" she exclaimed, "are you hurt?"
"Nothin' but my feelin's," growled the rescuer, scrambling upright. "I read a book once by a feller named Joshua Billin's, or somethin' like it. He was a ignorant chap--couldn't spell two words right--but he had consider'ble sense. He said a hen was a darn fool, and he was right; she's all that."
The Captain's face was blackened, and his clothes were scorched, but his spirit was undaunted.
"Pashy," he said, "do you realize that if we don't git help, this whole shebang, house and all, will burn down?"
"Perez, you don't mean it!"
"I wouldn't swear that I didn't. Look how that thing's blazin'! There's the barn t'other side of it, and the house t'other side of that."
"But can't you and me put it out?"
"I don't dare resk it. No, sir! We've got to git help, and git it in a hurry, too!"
"Won't somebody from the station see the light and come over?"
"Not in this fog. You can't see a hundred foot. No, I've got to go right off. Good land! I never thought! Is the horse gone?"
"No; the horse is here. Abner took one of the store horses to go to Harniss with. But he did take the buggy, and there's no other carriage but the old carryall, and that's almost tumblin' to pieces."
"I was cal'latin' to go horseback."
"What! and leave me here alone with the house afire? No, indeed! If you go, I'm goin', too."
"Well, then, the carryll's got to do, whether or no. Git on a shawl or somethin', while I harness up."
It was a frantic harnessing, but it was done in a hurry, and the ramshackle old carryall, dusty and cobwebbed, was dragged out of the barn, and Horace Greeley, the horse, was backed into the shafts. As they drove out of the yard the flames were roaring through the roof of the henhouse, and the lath fence surrounding it was beginning to blaze.
"Everything's so wet from the fog and the melted snow," observed the Captain, "that it 'll take some time for the fire to git to the barn.
If we can git a gang here we can save the house easy, and maybe more. By mighty!" he ejaculated, "I tell you what we'll do. I'll drive across the ford and git Luther and some of the station men to come right across.
Then I'll go on to the village to fetch more. It was seven when I looked at the clock as we come in from washin' dishes, so the tide must be still goin' out, and the ford jest right. Git dap!"
"Hurry all you can, for goodness' sake! Is this as fast as we can go?"
"Fast as we can go with this everlastin' Noah's Ark. Heavens! how them wheels squeal!"
"The axles ain't been greased for I don't know when. Abner was going to have the old carriage chopped up for kindlin' wood."
"Lucky for him and us 'tain't chopped up now. Git dap, slow-poke! Better chop the horse up, too, while he's 'bout it."
The last remark the Captain made under his breath.
"My gracious, how dark it is! Think you can find the crossin'?"
"GOT to find it; that's all. 'Tis dark, that's a fact."
It was. They had gone but a few hundred yards; yet the fire was already merely a shapeless, red smudge on the foggy blackness behind them.
Horace Greeley pounded along at a jog, and when the Captain slapped him with the end of the reins, broke into a jerky gallop that was slower than the trot.
"Stop your hoppin' up and down!" commanded Perez, whose temper was becoming somewhat frayed. "You make me think of the walkin' beam on a steamboat. If you'd stop tryin' to fly and go straight ahead we'd do better."
They progressed in this fashion for some distance. Then Miss Davis, from the curtained depths of the back seat, spoke again.
"Oh, dear me!" she exclaimed. "Are you sure you're on the right track?
Seems 's if we MUST be abreast the station, and this road's awful rough."
Captain Perez had remarked the roughness of the road. The carryall was pitching from one hummock to another, and Horace Greeley stumbled once or twice.
"Whoa!" commanded the Captain. Then he got down, lit a match, and, shielding it with his hands, scrutinized the ground. "I'm kind of 'fraid," he said presently, "that we've got off the road somehow. But we must be 'bout opposite the crossin'. I'm goin' to drive down and see if I can find it."
He turned the horse's head at right angles from the way they were going, and they pitched onward for another hundred yards. Then they came out upon the hard, smooth sand, and heard the water lapping on the shore.
Captain Perez got out once more and walked along the strand, bending forward as he walked. Soon Miss Patience heard him calling.