It was the old Carny dread of fire, mounting to a subconscious frenzy, and fastening on Rush as the man responsible. The very fact that he was slow in getting up weighed against him. It seemed to confirm his guilt.
Rush was slow in getting up, but not slow in streaking for the outside platform. He swung himself up beside me in a long, impetuous leap, grabbing a dangling rope and plunging out through the still smoking tent flaps like a clockwork orang-utan.
“We’ve got to beat it, Ralph!” he shouted. “I can’t explain it to them. They wouldn’t understand.”
I started to shout at him that it was his own funeral pyre and I didn’t care how fiery it got. He could rot in the jug for all of me. I was washing my hands of him then and there.
But then I saw the look on his face. He was pleading wit
