As Gautry came reeling and plunging down the street, someone shouted,
"Is there anyone in the house, Gautry?"

Gautry was speechless with drink. He threw his hands up in the air with
a gesture of maudlin despair, and shouted something which no one
understood. The crowd gathered like magic in the wide street before the
house--the one wide street in Manitou--from the roof and upper windows of
which flames were bursting. Far up the street was heard the noisy
approach of the fire-engine, which now would be able to do little more
than save adjoining buildings. Gautry, reeling, mumbling and whining,
gestured and wept.

A man shook him roughly by the shoulder. "Brace up, get steady, you
damned old geezer! Is there any body in the house? Do you hear? Is
there anybody in the house?" he roared.

Madame Thibadeau, who had dragged herself from her bed, was now at the
window of the house opposite. Seeing Fleda Druse passing beneath, she
called to her.

"Ma'mselle, Felix Marchand is in Gautry's house--drunk!" she cried.
"He'll burn to death--but yes, burn to death."

In agitation Fleda hastened to where the stranger stood shaking old
Gautry.

"There's a man asleep inside the house," she said to the stranger, and
then all at once she realized who he was. It was Dennis Doane, whose
wife was staying in Gabriel Druse's home: it was the husband of