CHAPTER IX
FIRE!
“A most remarkable story; but I happen to know certain things that fit in with it in every way. Boys, you have done me a great service to-day.”
Mr. Mainwaring paused as he spoke and looked kindly and admiringly at the three Boy Scouts who had unfolded to him the story of their experiences at the old barn. The tale had been told as they strolled along the road leading to the engineer’s home, on a hill outside Hampton.
It had occupied some time in the telling, and dusk was drawing in so that, much against their will, the boys were compelled to decline Mr. Mainwaring’s invitation to visit his library and see some interesting drawings and data relating to the Panama Canal. But they made an engagement to come at some other time and hear from the great engineer about some of the wonders that had been accomplished in the magic land lying nine degrees north of the equator – a land which, so far as the Canal Zone is concerned, has been turned by Uncle Sam’s canal commission into a land as healthful as any, if due precautions are observed.
It was almost dark as the boys hastened on their homeward way. There was a meeting called in the Eagle rooms over the bank that night, and they were all three in a hurry to get home and change and eat supper. As they walked along at a brisk pace, the conversation naturally was chiefly concerned with the topic which they had just been discussing with Mr. Mainwaring.
“I wonder what he’ll do about it?” said Merritt.
“Well, as he said, it’s a mighty delicate matter as things are now,” rejoined Rob. “To make a hasty move might force the plotters to rush things before any precaution could be taken against them. Even to take Jared before the authorities might be premature, so Mr. Mainwaring said. I gathered, in fact, that he means to let matters lie quiet for a time and watch every move of those whom he suspects.”
“They ought to clap the whole outfit in jail,” sputtered Tubby, “and give them nothing to eat but bread and water.”
“The last part of that remark would be a fearful punishment to Tubby, all right,” chuckled Merritt, nudging Rob.
“What a lucky chap Fred Mainwaring is,” said Rob presently. “Just think, when his father goes back to Panama he’s to go, too. His dad says that every American boy who can ought to see the Big Ditch before the water is in it, and that, even if Fred does miss some schooling, he will be getting some education that can’t be obtained from books.”
“That’s the sort I’d like,” sighed Tubby, who was a notoriously unwilling worshipper at the shrine of knowledge.
“How about a cook book?” chuckled Merritt mischievously, and then dodged aside just in time to avoid a blow from Tubby’s chubby fist.
Suddenly, behind them came the sound of wheels and the staccato rattle of a horse’s hoofs tapping the road at a rapid trot.
“Out of the road, fellows, here comes a rig,” cried Rob.
So fast was it coming that they had hardly time to step aside before the buggy, which held two occupants, was beside them. The driver pulled the horse up almost on its haunches and hailed them as they stood in the dark shadow of some big maples at the side of the road.
“Hey, you fellows! Got the time? We’ve got to make that seven-thirty train out of Hampton and my watch is broken.”
Rob, and his companions, too, recognized the voice instantly.
“It’s just seven o’clock, Jared,” said Rob, “you’ll have plenty of time.”
“Confusion,” muttered another voice in the rig, that of the strange young man who now appeared to be Jared’s shadow. “It’s those Boy Scouts.”
Jared picked up his whip and aimed a vicious slash into the darkness. It is not likely that he had any hope of striking one of the lads he disliked so much, but he intended it probably just to show his hatred of them in a graphic manner. The next instant the same whip cracked over the flanks of his horse and the buggy dashed off into the gathering gloom.
“Whew!” whistled Rob, “so Jared is going to beat a retreat, eh?”
“Looks like it. I saw a suit case strapped on the back of that rig.”
“We ought to stop him.”
“How? By what right? What excuse could we offer?”
“That’s so; but just the same it looks as if he’s going to give Mr. Mainwaring the slip and join those plotters some place.”
“It certainly does,” admitted Merritt. “I guess we ought to call up Mr. Mainwaring and ask him if there is anything we can do.”
“That’s a good idea, Merritt. At any rate, having done that, we shall have performed our duty.”
Hardly had the words left his lips before there came booming out on the night air a sound that thrilled them all to the heart. Clear and loud, with a note of clamorous terror, there came winging toward them the clang of the fire alarm! Stroke after stroke struck with a heavy hammer on the tire of an old locomotive wheel – that was the only alarm Hampton boasted. The wheel hung outside the fire house of the Vigilant Engine Company Number One. There was no Number Two.
“Gee whiz, fellows! The fire alarm!” cried Tubby, pulling up short in the road.
They stood breathlessly listening, while out on the dusk the clamorous notes of the steel tocsin went clanging and jangling. A thrilling, soul-stirring cry at any time, it was doubly so to these lads, members of a body enlisted in the cause of helping those who needed aid.
They were standing on the main street at a point where the stores and business houses had given place to residences surrounded by lawns and trees. Out of the houses there came rushing men and women and children, all in high excitement.
“Fire,” cried some of the men.
“Where?” came back in a dozen voices.
But nobody knew accurately. Suddenly a man, hatless and coatless, came sprinting up the street.
“It’s the ’cademy!” he was yelling, “the ’cademy’s on fire!”
“The Academy!” gasped Rob, aghast at the thought that the private school which most of the boys enrolled as Scouts attended was in flames.
“It’s up to us to do something and do it quick!” he cried the next instant. “Merritt, run as quick as you can to Andy’s house. Tell him to sound the Assembly. There’s lots of work for the Eagles to-night.”
A boy that Merritt knew was hastening by on a bicycle.
“Lend me your wheel for Scout duty, will you?” asked Merritt breathlessly.
The boy eagerly assented.
“I guess they’ll need all the help they can get,” he volunteered as Merritt sprinted off up the street, “my pop has been on the ’phone and they say it’s a mighty bad blaze.”
It seemed an eternity, but in reality it was only a few minutes before Merritt reached Andy’s home. The little bugler was just rushing out as Merritt dashed up. They almost collided.
“Sound the assembly!” panted Merritt. “The Academy’s on fire.”
“Wow! Wait a second. I knew of the fire and was going to get hold of Rob for instructions.”
Andy darted back to the house. He was out again in a flash and sounding the sharp, clear notes of the assembly call. Then came another urgent summons, the quick, imperative “fire call.”
“There go the firemen on the run,” exclaimed Andy, as several of the Vigilants dashed by the house. “Come on, Merritt; the others will all beat it to the fire-house at top speed.”
“Rob’s already there, I guess,” panted Merritt as they ran side by side, balancing the bicycle. As they proceeded, Boy Scouts came from some of the houses and joined them.
“The Academy! The Academy’s on fire,” they shouted.
Against the darkening sky a red gush of flame leaped up suddenly.
“Come on, fellows!” implored Merritt. “It’s going up like a pack of fire-works. We’ve got to hustle if we want to be of any use.”
CHAPTER X
A SCOUT HERO
At the fire-house they found Rob and Tubby helping to drag out the antiquated apparatus which was the best that Hampton boasted. Glad enough of the aid of the Boy Scouts, the firemen greeted them warmly. They recalled a former occasion when the khaki-clad lads had been of signal service to them.
Accordingly, while some of the men hitched up a pair of bony old nags to the engine, and others got the fire lighted, the hose cart was rushed out and the ropes unraveled.
“Fall in, boys,” shouted Rob.
They obeyed his order with military promptitude. The long rope was swiftly seized. Rob was in front, as became the leader of the troop.
“All ready!” came the cry.
“Heave!” shouted Rob.
Like one boy the Eagles bent to the work. Off they scampered down the street, Andy’s bugle calling to clear the way. Men and women on their way to the fire scattered to right and left as the hose cart came lumbering along, drawn by its willing young escort at almost as fast a gait as horses could have dragged it.
“’Ray for the Boy Scouts,” shrilled a small boy.
The excited crowd took up the cry as the hose cart went roaring by, speeding toward the sinister glow on the sky ahead of them.
A throng rushed behind it, making believe to aid greatly by pushing the lumbering vehicle.
Suddenly a terrible thought flashed across Rob’s mind. The house occupied by the janitor of the school was undergoing extensive repairs and he and his family had been given temporary quarters in some rooms at the top of the school building.
The sudden realization of this sent a thrill shooting through the boy. What if they were caught in a fiery trap, unable to escape?
“Oh, I hope they are all right,” Rob found himself muttering half aloud as at the head of a line of straining boys he galloped along.
“Hey! Here comes the engine,” went up a sudden shout from the crowd behind.
Glancing back Rob saw the engine, the pride of the Vigilants, coming careening down the street. Its whistle wailed in a melancholy fashion and from its stack there streamed sparks in sufficient volume to render timid folks apprehensive that another fire would be started.
“Pull out! Pull out!” cried Rob, as he saw it, “here comes the engine.”
But there was no need to tell his followers that. Every boy in the village knew the old Vigilant and had seen it go screeching and lurching to a dozen fires. They rushed the hose cart up on the sidewalk as the engine came swinging nearer. It looked quite inspiring with its flaming stack, hissing jets of steam and thunder of horses’ hoofs. The driver, Ed Blossom, was belaboring his steeds furiously.
Suddenly, out into the middle of the road darted a tiny little girl. In the excitement and confusion no one noticed her at first. She stood there apparently oblivious of the approaching fire engine for one instant. Then, although she saw her doom thundering down on her, she still stood as helplessly as a tiny bird fascinated by a glowing-eyed serpent.
“Out of the way! Run! Run!” shrieked a dozen frenzied voices as several people perceived the child’s danger.
“Great Scotland! She’ll be killed,” cried Merritt.
The engine was almost opposite the hose cart as the Scouts took in the scene, but with one spring Merritt darted right in the path of the heavy machine. It happened so quickly that no one quite knew what had happened until they saw a second figure in the path of the Juggernaut.
To snatch up the child was the work of an instant; but in that instant, as a groan from the horror-stricken onlookers testified, it looked as if Merritt’s doom had been sealed.
Ed Blossom tugged frantically at his horses’ bits and swerved them a trifle as he saw what was before him. As Merritt sprang backward with the agility of an acrobat, clasping the child in his arms, Ed succeeded in swinging just a little more. The horses grazed Merritt as they snorted and reared.
Suddenly there came a crash and a loud, tearing, ripping sound and the rear of the fire-engine was seen to collapse on one side. In pulling out to avoid running down Merritt and the little girl, Ed Blossom had quite forgotten, under the stress of the moment, the trees that grew on each side of the road. The hub of the rear wheel had struck one of these and the wheel had been torn off completely. If Ed had not been strapped to his seat he would have been hurled to the road.
A half hysterical woman fell on Merritt’s neck and covered him with tearful thanks. Then she snatched up the child and vanished in the crowd, leaving the Boy Scout free and greatly relieved that her gratitude was to be spared him just at that time.
There was a quick hand-clasp from Rob, “Well done, old man.” And then they all turned toward the wreck of the engine. Steam was hissing in clouds from the crippled bit of apparatus. Merritt heard someone say that the pump had been broken. He knew then that the engine was out of commission for that night.
Men had already unhitched the plunging horses and tied them to a tree. But it was soon evident that the engine must lie where it was for the present.
“Can’t do nawthin’ with her,” decided the foreman and Ed Blossom, after a necessarily hurried examination, “but say,” continued the foreman, enthusiastically, as if the breakage of the engine was only a secondary consideration, “that rescue of the little gal was as plucky a thing as I ever seen.”
And there was no one in that crowd who did not agree with him. But there was no time to linger by the engine. The thing to be done was to push on to the fire. The crowd rushed along and the foreman stopped to say to Rob aside: —
“You boys must help us keep the crowd back while we form a bucket line; it’s our only chance to save the place now – and a mighty slim one,” he added, as again a red tongue of flame slashed the dark firmament like a scarlet scimitar.
“There goes the last of the old ’cademy!” cried a man as he saw. “In an hour’s time there won’t be a stick of it left.”
Without the engine to pump a stream through the pipes, the hose cart was useless and was abandoned where it rested. Under the foreman’s directions the Boy Scouts invaded houses and borrowed and commandeered every bucket, pail or can they could find. Everything that would hold water was rushed to the scene.
There was a creek opposite the blazing Academy, and while the Boy Scouts held back the crowd the firemen formed a double line and passed the filled utensils rapidly from hand to hand. As fast as they were emptied they came back again to be refilled by those at the creek end of the line. With improvised staves, cut and broken from shrubs, the boys held the crowd back. The method was this: each lad held the ends of two staves, the other ends of which were grasped by his comrades on either side of him. This formed a sort of fence and to the credit of the Hampton citizens be it said they had too much respect for the good work of the Boy Scouts to try and press forward unduly.
The Boy Scouts were on duty now. Alert, watchful, aching to be taking part in the active scene before them, they schooled themselves into doing their best in the – by comparison – hum-drum task assigned to them.
The Academy, an aged brick building, was wreathed in flames. From the cupola on top, from which had sounded for so many years the morning summons to study, was spouting vivid fire. They could see Dr. Ezekiel Jones, the head of the school, and some of the other instructors running about in the brilliantly lighted grounds and saving armfuls of books and papers. The fire appeared to be on the middle floors. At any rate up to this time it had been possible for the men bent on saving what they could to dart in at the big front doors, reappearing with what they had been able to salvage from the flames.
With the pitifully inadequate means at their command, the firemen could do little more than work like fiends at passing buckets. It was necessary to be doing something, but even the stoutest hearted and most hopeful of the onlookers knew that the case was hopeless.
Suddenly there appeared, from no one knew exactly where, a little pale-faced man with sandy whiskers. He wore overalls and was hatless. A woman, a white-faced woman, clung to his arm desperately.
“No, Eben,” she kept screaming, “not you, too! Not you, too!”
“Let me go, Jane!” the pallid little man kept shouting in reply. “It’s our baby, we’ve got to get him out!”
He made a struggle toward the blazing building, but the woman clung to him frenziedly. Now a fireman rushed at him and added his strength to the woman’s.
“Great Scotland,” gasped Merritt, who stood next to Rob, “it’s old Duffy, the janitor, and his wife!”
“What is it?” cried Rob, without replying, as a fireman hastened past him. “What’s the matter?”
“Her baby. She’s left it in the ’cademy,” came the choking answer. The man, whose face was white with helpless horror, hurried on to obey some order, while a shudder of sympathy and fear ran through the crowd. Now came more details as men hastened back and forth. The woman, thinking that her husband had the baby, had rushed from the house at the first alarm. For his part, old Duffy, the janitor, never dreaming that the fire would gain such rapid headway, had tried to fight it alone, thinking all the time that his wife had the infant. The true situation had just been discovered and the man was frantic to get back into the place although he was a semi-invalid, known to suffer with heart disease.
The flames were leaping up more savagely every minute. For all the effect that the feeble dribble supplied by the bucket brigade had, they might as well have given up their efforts.
Rob felt his heart give a bound as he watched the janitor and his wife kindly, but firmly, forced back.
His pulses throbbed wildly. He gave one look at the red inferno before him. Then, —
“Here, spread your arms and take my place in line,” he snapped out suddenly to Merritt.
The next instant his lithe young figure darted across the flame-lit open space in front of the school. He knew the interior of the old building like a book, and that would aid him in the task he had steeled himself to perform. He rushed up to the group about the shrieking woman.
“What room is your child in?” he cried, his heart seeming to rise in his throat and choke back the words.
“That one on the south corner,” cried the woman mechanically, staring at him with frightened eyes. “See, the flames are getting nearer to it! Oh, my baby! My baby!”
She gave a terrible scream and sank back. Had they not caught her she would have fallen. When she opened her eyes again there was a roar all about her that was not the roar of the flames.
It was the tremendous, awe-stricken turmoil of the crowd. They had seen a boyish figure dart from the fainting woman’s side, shake off a dozen detaining hands, and then, wrapping his coat about his head, dash by a back entrance into the burning building.
As he flung open the door and vanished, a great puff of smoke rolled out. The cry of awed admiration for such bravery changed to a groan of despair, – the terrible voice of massed human beings seeing a lad go to his death. For, as the flames crackled upward more relentlessly than before, it did not seem within the bounds of possibility that anyone could enter the place and emerge alive.
CHAPTER XI
THE FIRE TEST
Touched with reckless bravery, foolhardiness in fact, as Rob’s act had appeared to be, yet he had not acted without taking due thought. As always in emergencies, his mind worked with great swiftness. He had no sooner made up his mind that it was his duty, cost what it might, to save that innocent little one’s life, than he had hit upon a plan.
If the child was lodged in the center of the building, he knew full well that long before its life must have been yielded up to the fire demon. But if the quarters of the janitor were, as he believed, in the south corner of the school, then there was still a chance. The mother’s words had put him out of all doubt on this score and Rob instantly determined to face the most daring act of his life.
The rooms at the south side of the building had been used by the Academy boys as a gymnasium before their present quarters were built, so that Rob was thoroughly familiar with the stairways leading to them. So far as he could see it would be possible, by using a side door, to dodge the flames shooting up the center of the building. There was a winding stairway that existed on this side of the structure quite independent of the main flight which, by this time, must have fallen in.
With Rob, to arrive at a decision was to act upon it. As we have seen, he had lost no time in making for the doorway. He had, in fact, a double reason for his haste. For one thing, every second would count, and, for another, he realized that to many in the crowd his act would appear to border on madness, and that an attempt might be made to hold him back.
“The boy’s a fool!” yelled someone in the crowd behind Merritt.
Quick as a flash Rob’s chum faced around, indignation shining in his eyes, which had, a second before, been dimmed with tears.
“No, sir; however Rob makes out, he’s a hero,” he shot back, while a murmur of approbation ran through the crowd.
“Keep your places, boys,” he ordered the next instant, for the Scouts, half wild with anxiety and excitement, were beginning to waver and allow the crowd to surge forward. Merritt’s words stiffened them. In a moment they were recalled to a sense of that duty of which they had just witnessed such a conspicuous example.
The instant Rob crossed the threshold of that door he found himself surrounded by smoke. But he bent low, and throwing his coat more closely above his head, he crouched on all fours so as to get below the level of the acrid fumes that made his eyes smart cruelly. Suddenly he stumbled over something, and as he saw in the dim light what it was he gave a glad gasp. It was a bucket of water, left on the stairway after the regular Saturday scrubbing.
Rob was a Scout who knew, from careful study of his Manual, just what to do in emergencies. He recalled now that in case of being compelled to enter a smoky, blazing building, it was recommended to bind a wet cloth over mouth and nostrils in such a way as to act as a respirator. Instantly he saturated his handkerchief in the water and bound it on his face in the manner advocated.
Then he began what was to prove a terrible climb. The school was three stories in height, the lower two floors containing study rooms and offices and the top floor lumber rooms and the apartments occupied temporarily by the janitor.
Breathing with more ease now that he had bound up his face, Rob fought his way upward. It was as murky as a pit, and it seemed that the stairs were interminable. Suddenly he stumbled and fell headlong. He had gained the first landing. Through a door opening upon it jets of flame, like serpents’ tongues, were beginning to shoot. Rob staggered toward the door and slammed it to. He knew that this was absolutely necessary, for in the case of the staircase being in flames when it came time for him to retrace his steps his retreat would be cut off.
But that was a thought he did not dare to dwell upon. Steeling himself anew he pushed stubbornly on to the next flight.
“It’s lucky I know this place as well as I do,” he thought, as he gamely kept up the fight against what appeared almost overwhelming odds.
As he climbed higher it grew hotter. The place was like the interior of a volcano. Beyond the wall of the stairway Rob could hear the flames roaring like the beat of the surf on a rocky coast. It almost seemed as if the fire demon possessed an articulate voice and was howling his rage and defiance at the boy who had dared to face his terrors. But, hot as it was growing, Rob yet found some small grain of comfort in the fact that the smoke was not so thick.
He breathed more freely even if his throat was becoming dry as dust and whistled in an odd way as he climbed higher. At last he reached the summit of the second flight.
He paused irresolutely on the landing. Several doors opened off it. Now that he was actually there, Rob was confused for an instant. He was not quite so sure of his bearings as he had thought he would be. But the roar of the flames below and about him warned him to lose not a second of precious time in procrastination.
He plunged into the door nearest at hand. Within he found himself in a room which was evidently a dining room. Supper was ready spread on the table. A lamp illumined the scene. How odd it seemed to be gazing at this peaceful domestic setting, while below and to one side of him, devouring flames were roaring and leaping. Save for a strong smell of smoke and a slight bluish haze, the room might have been a thousand miles away from the flaming building in which it was located.
Suddenly, as the boy stood there looking swiftly about him, there came a crash that shook the whole place like an earthquake.
“A floor’s fallen!” gasped Rob. “Pray heaven it’s not taken any part of that stairway with it!”
Brave as he was, the young scout turned pale and actually shook for an instant like a leaf. He knew full well that if that stairway, or any part of it, was gone, he was doomed to die as irrevocably as if a death sentence had been pronounced upon him. All at once, from a room opening off the dining room came a wailing cry.
“Muvver! Muvver, I’se fwightened!”
Rob’s heart gave a quick bound and he galvanized into instant action, a great contrast to his temporary state of stupefaction!
“All right, youngster. Don’t cry, I’m coming,” he called out, plunging forward.
Inside the room was a small crib, with a child about three years old lying on it clasping a doll in her arms.
“Who’s oo?” she demanded in some alarm, as Rob, with his handkerchief tied over his face, advanced.
“Me? Why – why, I’m a fireman,” exclaimed Rob; and then, with an inspiration, “Let’s play that the place is on fire and I’m going to save you.”
The child clapped her hands and her eyes shone. Rob picked her out of her crib and carried her tenderly out of the room.
“Now I’m going to cover your face just like real firemen do,” he said, as they emerged on the landing and the hot breath of the furnace below was spewed up at them.
“Is dat in de game,” inquired the child doubtfully, “an’ will oo cover dolly’s, too?”
“Yes, it’s all part of the game,” Rob reassured her. “Now then, there we are.”
He enveloped the child in his coat which he had already removed and started for the landing. Suddenly he stopped, and from under the coat came a muffled but inquisitive voice:
“Is ’oo cwyin’, Mister Fireman?”
No, Rob was not crying; but he had just seen something that made his breath come heavingly and his heart almost stop beating. Below him he could see a dull red glow, growing momentarily brighter. No need was there for him to speculate on what that meant.
The stairway was on fire. His one means of escape from the blazing building was cut off.
For an instant Rob’s head swam dizzily. He felt sick and shaky. Was he to die there in that inferno of flames? A cry was forced wildly from his cracked lips.
“Not like this! Oh, not like this!” he begged, raising his eyes upward.