THE TEST
The man behind him climbed to the ridge-pole and Code began the
descent, necessarily slow and careful because the ladders were loaded
with men passing buckets. When he reached the ground he started for
home on the run.
Opposite Boughton's general store was another shop that made a
specialty of fishermen's "oilers," boots, and overalls. Two houses to
the westward of that was the old Schofield place, a low, white house
surrounded by a rickety fence and covered with ivy.
Once he reached the middle of the road Code saw that he had been
mistaken in the location of the fire, for his mother's place was
intact. The flame was coming, however, from the house next but
one--Bijonah Tanner's place.
A crowd was gathering in the yard that was overgrown with dusty
wire-grass, and the squire was pushing his way through to take charge.
Code knew that only two days before Captain Bijonah and his wife had
sailed in the _Rosan_ to St. John's for lumber, leaving Nellie alone
in charge of the three small Tanners. He wondered where they all were
now.
He found his mother on the edge of the crowd that was helping to save
the furniture, and learned that Nellie and young Burns had already
arrived and were doing what they could.
From the first it was apparent that the place was doomed, for although
there were plenty of men eager to form a bucket brigade, the supply of
water was limited, and most of the buckets were at the larger fire.
But the squire was working wonders, and enlisted Code to help him.
In fifteen minutes the whole roof and attic were ablaze, and the men
turned their attention to wetting down the near walls of the houses on
each side. All the valuables and most of the simple furniture had been
saved.
At the earliest moment Schofield escaped from the squire and sought
out Nellie. He found her, hysterical, surrounded by a group of women,
and hovered over by Nat Burns. With each hand she held a child close
to her.
"Bige! Where is little Bige?" she was crying as Code came up. "Tom and
Mary are here, but I've lost Bige. Oh, Nat! Where is Bige?"
"Bless me if I know," stammered Burns weakly. "Last I saw of him he
was under that cherry-tree where you told him to stay until you got
the others. It wa'n't more'n five minutes ago I seen him there. He
must be around somewheres. I'll look."
Without another word he hurried off in a frantic search, looking to
left and right, behind every bush, and among the crowd, bellowing the
boy's name at the top of his voice.
Code walked up to the frantic girl and went straight to the point.
"Hello, Nellie!" he said. "Where do you cal'late little Bige might be?
I hear you've lost him."
"Yes, I have, Code. I stood him under that cherry-tree and told him
not to move. When I got back he was gone. He was seven, and just old
enough to run around by himself and investigate things. Oh, I'm so
afraid he's gone--"
"Listen!" Code's sharp, masterful tone put a sudden end to her
sobbing. "Was there anything in the house he valued much?" Suddenly
she drew in her breath sharply.
"Yes, yes," she cried, "his mechanical train. He asked me if I had got
it and I said I had. He must have gone over to the furniture and found
it hadn't been brought down. Oh, Code, Code--"
"What's the matter, Nellie?"
It was Nat Burns's hard voice as he elbowed roughly past Code and bent
solicitously over the girl. He had heard her last words and the
pleading in them, and his brow was dark with question and anger.
"Did you find him, Nat?" queried Nellie in an agony of suspense.
"No, I don't know where the little beggar can be," he replied;
"I've--" The girl screamed and fainted.
"What's the matter here?" shouted Burns. "What's the matter with
her?"
"The boy went back into the house for his toy engine and hasn't come
out again," said Code, facing the other and regarding him with a level
eye.
There was a dramatic pause. After Nat's proprietary interest in Nellie
and her affairs it was distinctly his place to make the next move.
Everybody felt it, and Code, subconsciously realizing this, said
nothing.
It required another moment for the situation to become clear to Burns.
Then, when he realized what alternatives he faced, he gradually grew
pale beneath his deep tan and looked defiantly from one to another of
the group about him.
"Rot!" he cried suddenly. "The boy can't have gone back. It wasn't
five minutes ago I saw him under the cherry-tree. I haven't looked in
this direction. Wait! I'll be back in a minute!" And again he was off
in his frantic search, his voice rising above the roar of the fire.
Code waited no longer.
Snatching up a blanket from the ground, he raced toward the burning
house.
The lower floor was still almost intact, but the upper floor and the
roof were practically consumed. The danger lay not in entering the
house, but in remaining in it, for although the roof had fallen in,
yet the second floor had not burned through and was in momentary
danger of collapse.
The spectators did not know what was in Code Schofield's mind until he
had burst into the danger zone. Then, with the blanket wound about his
arm and shielding his face he plunged toward the open doorway. It was
as though he stood suddenly before the open door of a vast furnace.
The blast of heat seemed an impenetrable force, and he struggled
against it with all his strength.
One more look, a mighty effort, and he was in the temporary shelter of
the doorway. He drew a long breath and plunged forward.
He knew the plan of the Tanner house as he knew his own, and he
remembered that in the rear was a room where the children played. The
hall ran straight back to the door of this room; but there was no
egress from the rear except through the kitchen, which adjoined the
play-room.
The heat that beat down upon his head made him dizzy, and he could not
see for the smoke that filled the hall. Instinctively he went down on
his hands and knees, discarding the blanket, and crawled toward the
rear.
He had scarcely reached the closed door of the play-room when, with a
thunderous roar, the ceilings at the front of the house fell in,
cutting off any escape in that quarter. He knew that at any moment the
rest of the ceilings would collapse.
Half-strangled with the increasing smoke, he staggered to his feet and
lunged against the door, forcing it open. The dim light from the one
square-paned window showed a small form huddled on the floor, the
mouth open, and a tiny locomotive gripped in one hand.
A rush of smoke and flame followed the violent opening of the door,
and Code felt himself growing giddy. A swift glance behind showed a
wall of fire where the hall had once been, and for the first time he
realized the seriousness of the task he had taken upon himself. But
there was no fear. Rather there came a sense of gladness that a
fighter feels when the battle has at last come to close grips.
He swept the small form of Bige up into his arms and leaped to the
window that was built low in the wall and without weights. To raise it
and manipulate the catch was out of the question. With all his
strength he swung his foot against the pane squarely in the middle.
Panes and frame splintered outward, leaving the casement intact
except for a few jagged edges of glass.
Then, suddenly, as he dropped the boy to the ground outside, there
came a blast of fire on the back draft created by the opening. Singed
and strangling, with a last desperate effort he threw himself outward
and fell on his shoulders beside little Bige.
Men who had heard the crash of glass when the window went out rushed
forward and dragged man and boy to safety.
A quarter of an hour later, his head and neck bandaged with sweet-oil,
Code made his way weakly to where Nellie sat among her belongings
cradling in her arms the boy whom the doctor had just brought back to
consciousness.
"He's all right, is he?" asked Schofield.
She smiled up at him through her tears.
"Yes, the doctor says it was just too much smoke. Oh, Code, how can I
thank you for this? And you are hurt! Is it bad? Can't I do
anything?"
She struggled to her feet, solicitude written on her face, for the
moment even forgetting little Bige, who had begun to howl.
"No," said Schofield, "you can't do anything. It isn't much. I'm only
glad I succeeded. Don't think anything about it."
"Father and mother will never forget this, and I'm sure will do what
they can to make it right with you."
He looked at her as though she had struck him. Never in his life had
she used that tone. Before the mute query of his eyes she turned her
head away.
"What do you mean--by that?" he faltered, hardly knowing what he
said.
"Nothing, Code, only--only--" She could not finish.
"What has happened, Nellie?" he began, and then halted, his gaze
riveted upon her hand. A single diamond glittered from the dirt and
grime that soiled her finger.
"That?" he gasped, stunned by a feeling of misery and helplessness.
"Nat and I are engaged," she said in a low voice without answering his
question. "Just since last night."
There was nothing more to be said. The banal wishes for happiness
would not rise to his lips. He looked at her intently for a moment,
saw her eyes again drop, and walked away. He was suddenly tired and
wanted to go home and rest. The reaction of his nervous and physical
strain had set in.
The hundred yards to his own gateway was a triumphal procession, but
he scarcely realized it. Somehow he answered the acclamations that
were heaped upon him. He smiled, but he did not know how.
At the gate some one was waiting for him. At first he thought it was
his mother, but he suddenly saw that it was Elsa Mallaby. He told
himself that she must have come down to the village to watch the fire,
and wondered why she was in that particular place.
"Code," she cried, her face flushed with glad pride, "you were
splendid! That was the bravest thing I ever heard of in my life. I
knew you would do it!"
He smiled mechanically, thanked her, and passed on while she gazed
after him, hurt and struck silent by the cold misery in his face.
"I wonder," she said to herself slowly, "whether something besides
what I told him has happened to him to-night?"