the fire. He went howling past on the high seat of the van, over the
next ridge and out of sight.

"We're goin' to tophet, and you done it, and you've got to pay for
it," Brackett wailed over and over, bobbing about on the seat. But
the Cap'n did not reply. Teams kept coming into sight ahead, and he
had thought only for his monotonous bellow of "Goff-off-errow!"

Disaster--the certain disaster that they had despairingly
accepted--met them at the foot of Rines' hill, two miles beyond Ide's.
The road curved sharply there to avoid "the Pugwash," as a
particularly mushy and malodorous bog was called in local
terminology.

At the foot of the hill the van toppled over with a crash and anchored
the steaming horse, already staggering in his exhaustion. Both men
had scrambled to the top of the van, ready to jump into the Pugwash
as they passed. The Cap'n still carried his equipment, both buckets
slung upon one arm, and even in this imminent peril it never occurred
to him to drop them. Lucky fate made their desperate leap for life
a tame affair. When the van toppled they were tossed over the roadside
into the bog, lighted on their hands and knees, and sank slowly into
its mushiness like two Brobdingnagian frogs.

It was another queer play of fate that the next passer was Marengo
Todd, whipping his way to the fire behind a horse that had a bit of
wire pinched over his nose to stifle his "whistling."

Marengo Todd leaped out and presented the end of a fence-rail to
Brackett first, and pulled him out.