CHAPTER X. A SCOUT HERO.
At the fire-house they found Rob and Tubby helping to drag out theantiquated apparatus which was the best that Hampton boasted. Glad enoughof the aid of the Boy Scouts, the firemen greeted them warmly. Theyrecalled a former occasion when the khaki-clad lads had been of signalservice to them.
Accordingly, while some of the men hitched up a pair of bony old nags tothe engine, and others got the fire lighted, the hose cart was rushed outand the ropes unraveled.
"Fall in, boys," shouted Rob.
They obeyed his order with military promptitude. The long rope wasswiftly 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 thestreet, Andy's bugle calling to clear the way. Men and women on their wayto the fire scattered to right and left as the hose cart came lumberingalong, drawn by its willing young escort at almost as fast a gait ashorses 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 thelumbering vehicle.
Suddenly a terrible thought flashed across Rob's mind. The house occupiedby the janitor of the school was undergoing extensive repairs and he andhis family had been given temporary quarters in some rooms at the top ofthe 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 aloudas at the head of a line of straining boys he galloped along.
"Hey! Here comes the engine," went up a sudden shout from the crowdbehind.
Glancing back Rob saw the engine, the pride of the Vigilants, comingcareening down the street. Its whistle wailed in a melancholy fashion andfrom its stack there streamed sparks in sufficient volume to render timidfolks 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 thevillage knew the old Vigilant and had seen it go screeching and lurchingto a dozen fires. They rushed the hose cart up on the sidewalk as theengine came swinging nearer. It looked quite inspiring with its flamingstack, hissing jets of steam and thunder of horses' hoofs. The driver, EdBlossom, was belaboring his steeds furiously.
Suddenly, out into the middle of the road darted a tiny little girl. Inthe excitement and confusion no one noticed her at first. She stood thereapparently oblivious of the approaching fire engine for one instant.Then, although she saw her doom thundering down on her, she still stoodas helplessly as a tiny bird fascinated by a glowing-eyed serpent.
"Out of the way! Run! Run!" shrieked a dozen frenzied voices as severalpeople 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 thescene, but with one spring Merritt darted right in the path of the heavymachine. It happened so quickly that no one quite knew what had happeneduntil 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 ifMerritt's doom had been sealed.
Ed Blossom tugged frantically at his horses' bits and swerved them atrifle as he saw what was before him. As Merritt sprang backward with theagility of an acrobat, clasping the child in his arms, Ed succeeded inswinging just a little more. The horses grazed Merritt as they snortedand reared.
Suddenly there came a crash and a loud, tearing, ripping sound and therear of the fire-engine was seen to collapse on one side. In pulling outto avoid running down Merritt and the little girl, Ed Blossom had quiteforgotten, under the stress of the moment, the trees that grew on eachside of the road. The hub of the rear wheel had struck one of these andthe wheel had been torn off completely. If Ed had not been strapped tohis seat he would have been hurled to the road.
A half hysterical woman fell on Merritt's neck and covered him withtearful thanks. Then she snatched up the child and vanished in the crowd,leaving the Boy Scout free and greatly relieved that her gratitude was tobe spared him just at that time.
There was a quick hand-clasp from Rob, "Well done, old man." And thenthey all turned toward the wreck of the engine. Steam was hissing inclouds from the crippled bit of apparatus. Merritt heard someone say thatthe pump had been broken. He knew then that the engine was out ofcommission 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 thepresent.
"Can't do nawthin' with her," decided the foreman and Ed Blossom, after anecessarily hurried examination, "but say," continued the foreman,enthusiastically, as if the breakage of the engine was only a secondaryconsideration, "that rescue of the little gal was as plucky a thing as Iever seen."
And there was no one in that crowd who did not agree with him. But therewas no time to linger by the engine. The thing to be done was to push onto the fire. The crowd rushed along and the foreman stopped to say to Robaside:--
"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," headded, as again a red tongue of flame slashed the dark firmament like ascarlet scimitar.
"There goes the last of the old 'cademy!" cried a man as he saw. "In anhour's time there won't be a stick of it left."
Without the engine to pump a stream through the pipes, the hose cart wasuseless and was abandoned where it rested. Under the foreman's directionsthe Boy Scouts invaded houses and borrowed and commandeered every bucket,pail or can they could find. Everything that would hold water was rushedto the scene.
There was a creek opposite the blazing Academy, and while the Boy Scoutsheld back the crowd the firemen formed a double line and passed thefilled utensils rapidly from hand to hand. As fast as they were emptiedthey came back again to be refilled by those at the creek end of theline. With improvised staves, cut and broken from shrubs, the boys heldthe crowd back. The method was this: each lad held the ends of twostaves, the other ends of which were grasped by his comrades on eitherside of him. This formed a sort of fence and to the credit of the Hamptoncitizens be it said they had too much respect for the good work of theBoy Scouts to try and press forward unduly.
The Boy Scouts were on duty now. Alert, watchful, aching to be takingpart in the active scene before them, they schooled themselves into doingtheir best in the--by comparison--hum-drum task assigned to them.
The Academy, an aged brick building, was wreathed in flames. From thecupola on top, from which had sounded for so many years the morningsummons to study, was spouting vivid fire. They could see Dr. EzekielJones, the head of the school, and some of the other instructors runningabout in the brilliantly lighted grounds and saving armfuls of books andpapers. The fire appeared to be on the middle floors. At any rate up tothis time it had been possible for the men bent on saving what they couldto dart in at the big front doors, reappearing with what they had beenable to salvage from the flames.
With the pitifully inadequate means at their command, the firemen coulddo little more than work like fiends at passing buckets. It was necessaryto be doing something, but even the stoutest hearted and most hopeful ofthe onlookers knew that the case was hopeless.
Suddenly there appeared, from no one knew exactly where, a littlepale-faced man with sandy whiskers. He wore overalls and was hatless. Awoman, 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'sour baby, we've got to get him out!"
He made a struggle toward the blazing building, but the woman clung tohim frenziedly. Now a fireman rushed at him and added his strength to thewoman'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 pasthim. "What's the matter?"
"Her baby. She's left it in the 'cademy," came the choking answer. Theman, whose face was white with helpless horror, hurried on to obey someorder, while a shudder of sympathy and fear ran through the crowd. Nowcame more details as men hastened back and forth. The woman, thinkingthat her husband had the baby, had rushed from the house at the firstalarm. For his part, old Duffy, the janitor, never dreaming that the firewould gain such rapid headway, had tried to fight it alone, thinking allthe time that his wife had the infant. The true situation had just beendiscovered and the man was frantic to get back into the place although hewas a semi-invalid, known to suffer with heart disease.
The flames were leaping up more savagely every minute. For all the effectthat the feeble dribble supplied by the bucket brigade had, they might aswell have given up their efforts.
Rob felt his heart give a bound as he watched the janitor and his wifekindly, but firmly, forced back.
His pulses throbbed wildly. He gave one look at the red inferno beforehim. Then,--
"Here, spread your arms and take my place in line," he snapped outsuddenly to Merritt.
The next instant his lithe young figure darted across the flame-lit openspace in front of the school. He knew the interior of the old buildinglike a book, and that would aid him in the task he had steeled himself toperform. He rushed up to the group about the shrieking woman.
"What room is your child in?" he cried, his heart seeming to rise in histhroat and choke back the words.
"That one on the south corner," cried the woman mechanically, staring athim 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 shewould have fallen. When she opened her eyes again there was a roar allabout her that was not the roar of the flames.
It was the tremendous, awe-stricken turmoil of the crowd. They had seen aboyish figure dart from the fainting woman's side, shake off a dozendetaining hands, and then, wrapping his coat about his head, dash by aback 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 ofdespair,--the terrible voice of massed human beings seeing a lad go tohis death. For, as the flames crackled upward more relentlessly thanbefore, it did not seem within the bounds of possibility that anyonecould enter the place and emerge alive.