He certainly hadn't taken the old gentleman's advice, thinking that to "soft-sawder" so great a reprobate as Jerry Brownbie would be holding a candle to the devil.

But his own plan had hardly answered.

Well, he was sure, at any rate, of this--that he could do no good now by endeavoring to be civil to the Brownbies.

He soon came to the place where the fire had reached his fence, and found that it had burned its way through, and that the flames were still continuing their onward course.

The fence to the north, or rather to the northwestward--the point whence the wind was coming--stood firm at the spot at which the fire had struck it.