Two days later Mary Farrell left Brine's Rip. She hugged and kissed Woolly Billy very hard before she left, and cried a little with him, pretending to laugh, and she took her three big trunks with her, in the long-bodied express waggon¹ which carried the mails, although she said she would not be gone more than a month at the outside.  
Tug² Blackstock eyed those three trunks with a sinking heart. His only comfort was that he had in his pocket the key of Mary's little shop, which she had sent to him by Woolly Billy. When the express waggon had rattled³ and bumped away out of sight there was a general feeling in Brine's Rip that the whole place had gone flat, like stale beer, and the saws did not seem to make as cheerful a shrieking⁴ as before, and Black Saunders, expert runner of logs as he was, fell in because he forgot to look where he was going, and knocked his head heavily in falling, and was almost drowned before they could fish him out.
 
"There's goin' to be some bad luck comin' to Brine's Rip afore long," remarked Long Jackson in a voice of deepest pessimism⁵.
 
"It's come, Long," said the Deputy.
 
That same day the wind changed, and blew steadily⁶ from the mills right across the village. But it brought no change in the weather, except a few light showers that did no more than lay the surface dust. About a week later it shifted back again, and blew steadily away from the village and straight across the river. And once more a single night-watchman was regarded as sufficient safeguard against fire.
 
A little before daybreak on the second night following this change of wind, the watchman was startled by a shrill⁷ scream and a heavy splash from the upper end of the great pool where the logs were gathered before being fed up in the saws. It sounded like a woman's voice. As fast as he could stumble over the intervening deals and rubbish he made his way to the spot, waving his lantern and calling anxiously. There was no sign of any one in the water. As he searched he became conscious of a ruddy light at one corner of the mill.
 
He turned and dashed back, yelling "Fire! Fire!" at the top of his lungs. A similar ruddy light was spreading upward in two other corners of the mill. Frantically⁸ he turned on the nearest chemical extinguisher, yelling madly all the while. But he was already too late. The flames were licking up the dry wood with furious appetite.
 
In almost as little time as it takes to tell of it the whole great structure was ablaze⁹, with all Brine's Rip, in every varying stage of déshabille, out gaping¹⁰ at it. The little hand-fire-engine worked heroically, squirting a futile¹¹ stream upon the flames for a while, and then turning its attention to the nearest houses in order to keep them drenched¹².
 
"Thank God the wind's in the right direction," muttered Zeb Smith, the storekeeper and magistrate¹³. And the pious¹⁴ ejaculation was echoed fervently¹⁵ through the crowd.
 
In the meantime Tug Blackstock, seeing that there was nothing to do in the way of fighting the fire—the mill being already devoured—was interviewing the distracted watchman.
 
"Sure," he agreed, "it was a trick to git you away long enough for the fires to git a start. Somebody yelled, an' chucked in a big stick, that's all. An', o' course, you run to help. You couldn't naturally do nothin' else."
 
The watchman heaved a huge sigh of relief. If Blackstock exonerated¹⁶ him from the charge of negligence¹⁷, other people would. And his heart had been very heavy at being so fatally fooled.
 
"It's Harner's Bend all right, that's what it is!" he muttered.
 
"Ef only we could prove it," said Blackstock, searching the damp ground about the edges of the pool, which was lighted now as by day. Presently he saw Jim sniffing¹⁸ excitedly at some tracks. He hurried over to examine them. Jim looked up at him and wagged his tail, as much as to say, "So you've found them, too! Interesting, ain't they!"
 
"What d'ye make o' that?" demanded Blackstock of the watchman.
 
"Boy's tracks, sure," said the latter at once.
 
The footprints were small and neat. They were of a double-soled larrigan, with a low heel of a single welt.
 
"None of our boys," said Blackstock, "wear a larrigan like that, especially this time o' year. One could run light in that larrigan, an' the sole's thick enough to save the foot. An' it's good for a canoe, too."
 
He rubbed his chin, thinking hard.
 
"Yesterday," said the watchman, "I mind seein' a young half-breed, he looked like a slip of a lad, very dark complected, crossin' the road half-a-mile up yonder. He was out o' sight in a second, like a shadder, but I mind noticin' he had on larrigans—an' a brown slouch hat down over his eyes, an' a dark red handkerchief roun' his neck. He was a stranger in these parts."
 
"That would account for the voice, like a woman's," said Blackstock, following the tracks till they plunged^............