Animals: Burning Horses

It was dawn outside, but in the long stables at the New Orleans Fair Grounds where week before last the winter race meeting was at its height, the horses, lying down or standing motionless in their stalls, slept in darkness. The smell in the wooden barns was a smell of hay, liniment and leather. Through these pleasant smells there drifted presently the acrid odor of smoke. A tall chestnut plater flicked his ears and stumbled to his feet, making a sudden muffled thunder in the darkness.

Fire moves quickly in wooden barns. An oil stove...