CHAPTER VII
AT RISK OF LIFE
For a moment Bobby’s heart stood still.
The next instant he had slammed the door shut, so as to prevent thespread of the flames as much as possible. Then he raced through thehall, banging on the doors of the various rooms and shouting at the topof his voice:
“Fire! Fire! The school is on fire!”
There was a sound of answering shouts from the startled inmates of therooms, and doors were torn open, showing frightened and bewilderedfaces.
Not stopping for a moment, Bobby ran up the stairs to the room wherehung the great bell of the school. He grasped the rope and pulled itback and forth with all his might, and the bell sent out its clangorinto the night, rousing the people from their slumbers for miles around.
Down the stairs Bobby sprang and rushed to the telephone. He called upthe fire station in the town of Rockledge and told the news, getting ananswer that the engine would be rushed out as fast as possible.
Then Bobby ran back to his room, pushing his way through the confusedand shouting groups of boys who had rushed into the halls in all stagesof dress and undress, and began hurriedly to slip on his own clothes,answering as well as he could the questions put by Fred, who was alreadynearly dressed.
“Are the fellows all out?” asked Fred, as he slipped on his jacket.
“I guess so,” replied Bobby, as he finished lacing his shoes. “I bangedon all the doors, and then too the ringing of the bell would wake thedead. I passed most of them already out in the hall. Oh, but there’sLee!” he fairly shouted, jumping to his feet. “His room is off from therest and it’s just across from where the fire is! We’ve got to get himout.”
He threw open the door and started down the hall. But just then flamesburst through the door of the burning room and swept completely acrossthe hall, barring the passage.
Like a flash, Bobby was back in the room. He seized a towel and thrustit into the pitcher of water that stood on the washstand. Then he woundthe dripping folds about his head.
“Take the pitcher and dash the rest of the water over me!” he shouted toFred. “Quick!”
Fred did so and Bobby darted out of the room.
Down the hall he went and made a flying leap through the flames holdinghis breath as he did so, in order that he might not inhale the fire. Hereached Lee’s door and rushed in.
The room was full of smoke, and Lee, half stupefied by it and hardlyknowing what he was doing was staggering about. Bobby grabbed him by thearm and shook him.
“Brace up, Lee!” he cried.
With the other hand he picked up a heavy bathrobe and threw it overLee’s head and shoulders. Then he started to lead him to the door, butLee had not been on his feet for so long that his knees gave way underhim.
At that instant, Fred, who had also drenched himself from head to foot,appeared at his side, and Bobby heaved a sigh of relief.
“Let’s wrap his head and shoulders in this bathrobe,” panted Bobby.“Then you take his feet and I’ll take his head, and we’ll make a breakto get through.”
Fred helped as directed, and closing their eyes when they neared thedarting flames, they got through with their burden just in time todeliver Lee into the hands of Dr. Raymond and Mr. Carrier, who had comerushing in half dressed from the adjoining building. Thehalf-unconscious boy was taken to a safe place and ministered to, andthen Dr. Raymond and the teachers turned their attention to fighting thefire, first having made sure that all the pupils were accounted for.
By this time the flames had gained considerable headway, and had brokenthrough the partitions into adjoining rooms. Hand grenades were broughtinto use, but could do little toward checking the fire. Then a bucketbrigade was organized, and the boys worked like Trojans in passing thebuckets from hand to hand. But the flames were not entirely extinguisheduntil help arrived from the town. Then a powerful stream was turned onand the fire was speedily gotten under control.
It was after midnight before the danger was over, and much later thanthat when the fire company thought it safe to depart, leaving one oftheir number to guard against any renewal of the flame from the soddenand smouldering embers.
Then the boys, who were utterly fagged out by the excitement and thehard work they had been doing, had time to take an account of matters.Some of the rooms had been burned out altogether, including thatoccupied by Bobby and Fred. They had had time however to remove most oftheir clothes and personal belongings, but the other contents of therooms were practically a total loss.
Personally they had gotten off with only trifling hurts and burns.Fred’s hair had been singed and Bobby’s hands had some blisters,incurred by that rapid rush through the flames, and some of the otherboys had minor injuries, incurred chiefly in the effort to save theirbelongings. But none had perished and none had been seriously hurt, andin this they found ample reason for thanksgiving.
“Gee, Bobby, but it was lucky that you woke up just then!” exclaimedShiner. “If you hadn’t, a lot of us might have been burned to death.”
“It’s lucky that I had that nightmare,” replied Bobby with a grin, andhe narrated the details of his fight with the alligators in his dream.“If I hadn’t been shocked awake by that,” he concluded, “I’d have beenas sound asleep as the rest when the fire broke out.”
“It was an awful plucky thing that you and Fred did when you wentthrough the fire for Lee,” commented Mouser. “A little later and nobodycould have got to him and he’d have been a goner sure.”
“I only hope it hasn’t set him back,” replied Bobby. “He wasn’t in shapeto stand much excitement.”
Dr. Raymond and the rest of the teaching staff came up just then to makearrangements for the sleeping quarters of the boys who had been turnedout of their rooms. Some were doubled up in rooms that had been leftintact, and others were taken over in the adjoining wing, where somespare cots were installed for their use. None of the boys felt that theycould sleep any more that night, but they obeyed orders just the same,and as a matter of fact all of them were asleep long before morningdawned.
Having seen them all provided for, the doctor went back to his quarters,but not without first having a word with Bobby and Fred.
“Again the school and myself are under a debt to you, Blake,” he said.“You have shown again the quality of which I spoke to you two weeks ago,that of quick thinking. There is no doubt that if you and Martin had notacted as you did in regard to Cartier, he would have died in theflames.”
“I never thought much of nightmares,” Bobby said to Fred, later on, asthey crept into bed, “but I sure am glad I had that one. That dreamalligator that nearly had his teeth in me was the best friend I everhad.”
“Yes,” agreed Fred, “and I’ll tell the world that he was the best friendRockledge School ever had.”