whistle so piercing and continuous that all the occupants of our car
sprang from their couches, and met in a demoralized group of
multicolored pajamas in the corridor. What was it? Had the train been
held up? Were we attacked? No; both the whistle and the pistol shots
were merely Flagstaff's mode of giving an alarm of fire. We hastily
dressed and stepped out upon the platform. A block of buildings just
opposite the station was on fire, and was evidently doomed; yet
Flagstaff's citizens, whose forms, relieved against the lurid glow,
looked like Comanche Indians in a war dance, fought the flames with
stubborn fury. The sight of a successful conflagration always thrills
me, partly with horror, partly with delight. Three hundred feet away,
two buildings formed an ever-increasing pyramid of golden light. We
could distinguish the thin streams of water thrown by two puny
engines; but, in comparison with the great tongues of fire which they
strove to conquer, they appeared like silver straws. Nothing could
check the mad carousal of the sparks and flames, which danced,
leaped, whirled, reversed, and intertwined, like demons waltzing with
a company of witches on Walpurgis Night. A few adventurous men
climbed to the roofs of the adjoining structures, and thence poured
buckets of water on the angry holocaust; but, for all the good they
thus accomplished, they might as well have spat upon the surging,
writhing fire, which flashed up in their faces like exploding bombs,
whenever portions of the buildings fell. Meantime huge clouds of
dense smoke, scintillant with sparks, rolled heavenward from this
miniature Vesuvius; the neighboring windows, as they caught the
light, sparkled like monster jewels; two telegraph poles caught fire,
and cut their slender forms and outstretched arms against the jet
black sky, like gibbets made of gold. How fire and water serve us,
when subdued as slaves; but, oh, how terribly they scourge us, if
ever for a moment they can gain the mastery! Too interested to