WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS LIFE.
“Otis Clymer, what are you doing here at this hour in the morning?”
exclaimed Jack, holding a strong grip on the struggling clerk.
“None of your business--let me go!” gritted the villain, using every
effort to free himself.
Then Jack caught a glimpse of the spreading fire through the half-open
surgery door, and the sight clearly startled him.
“You rascal,” he shouted. “You’ve set fire to the store.”
Clymer, fairly frantic at the idea that he had been caught in the act
of not only destroying the doctor’s establishment, but also a human
life, struck the boy a heavy blow in the face.
Half stunned, Jack partially released his hold on Clymer, and the
villain, taking advantage of that fact, wrenched himself free, tripped
the lad up and rushed out of the garden into the street and disappeared.
Jack, however, pulled himself together in a moment, and seeing that
Clymer was beyond his reach he banged open the surgery door and rushed
inside that he might ascertain the extent of the danger.
The glare of the fire showed him the ghastly countenance of Gideon
Prawle turned toward the ceiling.
“Wake up! Wake up, Prawle! The place is on fire!” cried Jack, seizing
the man from the West and shaking him roughly.
But Prawle never made a move of his own accord, but lay like a log in
the boy’s grasp.
“What’s the matter with you? Wake up!”
Jack grabbed him with both hands and pulled him up into a sitting
posture.
Prawle’s head rolled over on his shoulder like that of a dead man.
“In Heaven’s name, what can be the matter with the man? He looks like
death. Has he had another fit?”
It may be easy to ask questions, even in a moment of intense
excitement, but it certainly is not so easy to find an answer to them
when the object to whom they are addressed turns a deaf ear to our
importunities.
“This is terrible!” exclaimed the boy, the perspiration oozing out on
his forehead. “I must drag him out of here.”
Gideon Prawle hung a dead-weight in his arms, but Jack was strong
enough to handle him easily enough.
He laid him down in the damp grass a short distance from the surgery,
and then started in to put out the fast increasing flames.
There was a water-butt at one corner of the building, and somebody,
probably Meyer, had left a horse bucket beside it that afternoon.
Jack seized the bucket, pushed the cover off the barrel, and filling
the implement with rain water rushed into the blazing surgery and
dashed the water upon the flames.
This he repeated as fast as he could traverse the short space between
the barrel and the room.
Fearing he might not be able single-handed to subdue the flames he
yelled “Fire!” lustily each time he came out.
Both Dr. Fox and his son, who were sleeping soundly, heard his shouts
at the same moment, and both sprang out of their beds and rushed to a
window to look out.
Charlie missed his chum at once, for the pair had occupied the same
bed, and for an instant he wondered where he had gone.
“Fire!” came up Jack’s voice again.
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Charlie, “That surely is his voice,” and he
threw up his window, which faced almost directly on the surgery.
At the same moment he heard the window of the front room go up with a
bang, and his father’s voice exclaim:
“Hello! What’s wrong?”
For the moment there was no answer as Jack had just taken another
bucket of water inside.
But he presently reappeared with the empty bucket swinging in his hand.
He presented a strange sight to Charlie, for his hair was disheveled,
he was attired only in his trousers, undershirt and boots, and his face
was flushed from the exertion and excitement.
“Hello, Jack!” exclaimed the doctor’s son. “What the mischief is wrong?”
“The surgery is on fire,” replied Jack, hurriedly.
“On fire!” ejaculated Charlie, aghast. “Great Scott!”
“Come down and lend me a hand. I think I have got it under control.”
Thus speaking, he vanished into the building again with another pail of
water.
Dr. Fox had caught enough of this brief colloquy to understand that
something was out of joint at the store, and naturally he hastened to
get into a portion of his clothes and rush to the scene of action,
where he arrived almost as soon as his son.
The flames had obtained some headway before Jack Howard had got busy in
an effort to subdue them; but his exertions had been well directed, and
he had managed to keep them from spreading to the shop.
“Get another bucket or something, Charlie,” he shouted, as soon as he
perceived his chum dashing out from the side door.
There should have been a bucket beside the well in the yard near the
barn, but as it was not there now it is probable it was the one in
Jack’s hands, misplaced by the German boy.
To get another, Charlie had to get into the stable or barn, as the
building was called, and as it was always kept locked at night, the key
being in charge of Meyer, who slept in the loft or attic, the doctor’s
son had to wake up the Dutch boy, who was a heavy sleeper, by pounding
like mad on the side door which opened on to the stairs.
He had to make noise enough to awaken the Seven Sleepers before one of
the small windows in the loft was opened and Meyer’s big head appeared.
“Vot you vants down dere, any vays? Vot you dook me for?--der doctor?
Well, go by your pus’ness aboud und voke ub der right barty.”
“Wake up, you thick-headed fool!” cried Charlie, quite out of patience.
“Vhy, it don’d peen you, Sharlie?” exclaimed Meyer in an astonished
voice.
“Will you throw down the key of the barn?”
“Vot you vants mit der key off der barns?”
“Do you want me to come up and fire you out of the window? Throw down
the key, do you hear?”
“I hear, I ped you. Vell, vait a moments und I vill drow it down.”
Charlie waited for it in a fever of impatience.
“Now, get into your clothes and come down yourself as quick as you
can,” he cried to the boy, when the key flopped at his feet.
“Shimmany Christmas!” grumbled the German lad, as he watched Charlie
rush to the barn with the key. “Dis vos a nice hour to voke a feller
ub, I don’d dink. Off I stood it much longer I am a yackass.”
Dr. Fox, when he appeared on the scene, was amazed to find the
unconscious form of Gideon Prawle lying stretched out like a dead man
upon the grass.
He passed him, however, to take a flying look into the surgery, and see
how serious matters were in that quarter.
“You can’t do any good here,” said Jack. “Better look after Prawle. I’m
sure something serious has happened to him. Charlie will be with me in
a moment with another bucket, and the pair of us ought to be able to
put this blaze out.”
Jack spoke encouragingly, for he saw that he already had the fire under
control.
So Dr. Fox returned to the stranger from the West, and his experienced
nostrils immediately detected the fresh odor of chloroform.
“Has the man committed suicide?” was his first thought. “No, he is
not dead,” he said to himself, after he had put his ear down to the
man’s chest and listened with professional accuracy for indications of
heart-beats.
Dr. Fox being a small man, it was a physical impossibility for him to
drag the big prospector up on his stoop out of the dampness.
The best he could do was to drag him over to the gravel walk, and this
required much effort on his part.
Then he went into the cottage to get certain remedies to bring the man
back to his senses.
With Charlie’s assistance Jack finally subdued the flames inside of
another ten minutes, but a considerable amount of damage had been done
to the surgery.
“B’gee! This is fierce!” cried Charlie, as the two boys, having thrown
their buckets aside, stood contemplating the ruin wrought by the fire.
“Have you any idea how this occurred?” he added, turning to his chum.
“Well, I think I have,” replied Jack, with a frown upon his handsome
face. “The surgery was set on fire by Otis Clymer.”
“You don’t mean that!” exclaimed young Fox, starting back in
astonishment.
“Well, I don’t mean anything else,” replied Jack stoutly.
“Tell me what ground you have for thinking so. This is a serious charge
to bring against that fellow. It will lead to his immediate arrest and
prosecution. If sustained he will surely be sent to the State prison
for a good many years, for arson is a crime severely dealt with.”
“He’s not merely guilty of attempted arson, Charlie,” said Jack, with a
serious face, “but the scoundrel actually left Gideon Prawle to perish
in the flames.”