Mr. Saunders, his smooth self again, with all traces of mental
disturbance gone from his face and all roughness from his tongue, came
briskly up, smiling as if the burning of his place of business was but a
trifling incident, a little annoying, of course, but not worth fretting
about. He thanked the Captain and Hazeltine effusively for their service
of the previous night, and piled the weight of his obligations upon them
until, as Captain Eri said afterwards, "the syrup fairly dripped off his
chin." The Captain broke in upon the sugary flow as soon as he could.

"How d'you think it started, Web?" he asked.

"Well," replied Mr. Saunders slowly, "I kind of cal'late she started
herself. There was some of the boys in here most of the evenin',
and, jest like's not, a cigar butt, or a match, or somethin'
dropped somewheres and got to smolderin', and smoldered along till
bime-by--puff!" An expressive wave of a fat hand finished the sentence.

"Humph!" grunted the Captain. "Changed your mind sence last night. Seems
to me I heard you then swearin' you knew 'twas set and who set it."

"Well, ye-es. I was considerable shook up last night and maybe I said
things I hadn't ought to. You see there's been a good deal of hard
feelin's towards me in town and for a spell I thought some feller'd
tried to burn me out. But I guess not; I guess not. More I think of it,
more I think it catched itself. Seems to me I remember smellin' sort of
a scorchin' smell when I was lockin' up. Oh, say! I was mighty sorry to
hear 'bout Cap'n Baxter bein' took sick. The old man was dreadful
down on liquor, but I laid that to his religion and never had no hard
feelin's against him. How's he gittin' along?"