It is the unconsidered trifles of life which oftentimes shape human
destinies.
And what trifle is there of less importance than a window-curtain swayed
by the midnight breeze?
There was such a curtain swinging idly in the window of a dimly lighted
room as the clocks in the tall church towers tolled the solemn hour of
midnight. The wind was high now, and the snow, which had been falling
for nearly six hours, was heaped upon the roofs of the tall houses, and
lay in huge drifts about the streets, while the flakes which filled the
keen winter air were blown so sharply in the faces of pedestrians that
men found walking possible only by keeping to the middle of the street,
and bending their heads down to the sharp blasts. Now and then a
policeman, muffled up to his eyes, walked along, trying the doors of
shops and other places of business to see that thieves were not busy
during the storm.
As the night wore on, the passers-by appeared at rarer intervals, and
the snow, undisturbed by man or beast, allowed itself to be whirled and
twisted by the wind into fantastic shapes, that changed with every fresh
gust. One o’clock sounded from many a brazen tongue, and the wind, as if
it heard in the sharp, vibrant note a new signal, seemed to grow
suddenly in strength and swept across the city with fiercer and louder
blasts, while the snow fell in blinding masses on roof and pavement.
The same wind coming with awful fury up the broad, deserted avenue,
struck with full force against the splendid hotel, and pouring through
the half-open window in the dimly lighted room set the white
window-curtain swaying and flapping with renewed life.
“An awful night for a fire!” muttered a belated citizen, as he mounted
his doorstep and shook the snow from his clothing in his marble-tiled
vestibule.
It was indeed an awful night for a fire, but the cold and weary citizen
dismissed all anxiety from his mind, and sought his bed, happy in the
knowledge that there were scattered about the great sleeping city
fire-engines, with swift horses to draw them, and companies of vigilant,
courageous men ready to hurry to the scene of disaster at a moment’s
warning. And very soon the belated citizen slept too, while the storm
outside raged with increased fury, and the snow swept down from the
heavens and was piled in great drifts beneath the shadows of the tall
building.
And down in Chief Trask’s quarters nearly a mile away Bruce Decker
slumbered peacefully, with his turnout on the floor beside him, while
the horses stamped uneasily in their stalls, and the two men on watch
sat close to the stove and talked in low tones about fires that they had
known on just such windy, snowy nights in years gone by. Outside the
truck-house the wind howled dismally, and the snow swept through the
street in pitiless, blinding gusts, while up-town the same blasts paused
for a moment in their northerly flight to play with the white
window-curtain that was swinging and flapping now with increased
violence in the half-lighted chamber.
And throughout the storm Bruce slept as calmly as a child, knowing
nothing of all that that window-curtain meant for him. A gust fiercer
than the others tore the light band which held the curtain to the wall
and sent it fluttering against the gas jet. It blazed up and caught the
woodwork about the window and then another gust of wind, pausing in its
swift flight to the far north, scattered the blazing particles about the
room, and fanned the flames that were eating their way through the
handsome woodwork. Outside, beneath the window where the curtain had
flapped for a moment before, the snow lay in huge untrodden drifts.
There was no one there to note the blaze which had started in the room
on the fifth floor, nor was there any chance watcher in the silent
houses over the way to give the alarm.
It was twenty minutes after one when the idle wind blew the curtain
against the flame, and at precisely twenty-five minutes of two a servant
rushed, bareheaded, into the street, and, breaking for himself a path
through the heavy drifts of snow, made straight for a lamp-post with red
glass in its lamp that stood two blocks away. There was a red box on
this lamp-post, and, although his fingers were numb with cold, the
servant had it open in a jiffy, and in another second had pulled down
the hook which he found inside. Before he had removed his hand from the
box the number of the station had been received at headquarters and the
night operator had sent the alarm to the companies in the immediate
vicinity of the fire. A few seconds later half a dozen truck and engine
companies, warned by the electric current, had started from their
quarters and were on their way through the fierce, pelting storm. The
men were buttoning their coats and pulling their fire-helmets well down
over their heads as they were borne on truck and engine through the
silent streets. There was no time for ceremony or roll-call in the
houses into which the electricity had come with its dread warning. Not
one of those men against whose stern, set faces the wind blew the keen
flakes of snow, knew what awaited him at the end of this midnight
journey. They were actuated by but one purpose, and that was to be at
the fire as soon as possible.
And as the firemen bore down in swift flight from the four points of the
compass upon the doomed structure, servants went hurrying through the
corridors, knocking on every door and arousing the sleeping guests with
shrill cries of “Fire!” Men, women, and children were emerging from
their rooms, some calm and cool, others stricken with an awful terror,
some in their night-clothes, and others partly dressed, and all hurrying
as fast as they could to the staircase or elevator.
And then a cry went up in every corridor, “The elevator’s afire! Make
for the staircase!”
It was indeed true. The elevator shaft, acting as a draft like the tall
chimney of a manufactory, had drawn the flames toward itself with
resistless force, and the fire was now roaring and raving up the square
shaft, burning the woodwork and spreading destruction from floor to
floor.
A stranger, seeing the awful conflagration that had broken out so
suddenly on that night of storm and snow, would have said, without
hesitation, that the city was doomed to a repetition of that hurricane
of smoke and flames that swept through Chicago years ago, and left of
that fair city nothing but a waste of smoking ashes. The most
destructive of all elements had begun its deadly work, and who could say
what limit there would be to the destruction of life and property which
would result?
But, happily for the sleeping city, there was arrayed that night against
the devouring flames, the Fire Department of New York—the bravest and
brainiest of men, armed with the finest appliances that modern science
could produce—and it was with a knowledge of that fact and with a
confidence in the courage, skill and fidelity of this branch of the
municipal government, that men and women throughout the snow-covered
town slept on peacefully throughout the storm.
[Illustration: “The horses bounded to their places.”—_Page 343._]
And the electricity flashing along the wire from the headquarters
up-town entered the silent truck house ruled by Chief Trask, and with
one stroke of the gong transformed it into a scene of activity. The men
who were on watch on the ground floor, sprang from their seats by the
stove, and the horses, released by the electric current, bounded to
their places, three in front of the heavy truck, and one between the
shafts of the chief’s red wagon.
And the same alarm which rang out in the lower floor, sounded also in
the room above, where the men lay sleeping. Bruce heard it just as he
was dreaming of the old days in the village beside Lake Ontario, and he
sprang to the floor, and struggled into his turnout, before he fairly
realized that he was in New York, and not in the country. But, quick as
he was, he was not a second ahead of the other men, and as he slid down
one of the shining poles, he found that fully half the company had got
down before him. By this time the horses were all in their places, and
the men had just finished hitching. The alarm was still ringing on the
gong, and although Charley Weyman leaped to his place in the driver’s
seat, the company did not start. It was a first alarm, but not one on
which they were due. For a few moments they waited, while the horses
tugged and strained at their bits, and stamped on the wooden floor in
their eagerness to be off. Then the second alarm came, and Tom Brophy,
who was at the wheel, drew on a pair of heavy woolen mittens, while the
men pulled their thick caps down over their heads, and Weyman exclaimed,
“Look out, fellows, we’ll get a third for that, sure!”
Bruce had watched these preparations with considerable excitement, and
at the suggestion of one of the men, had pulled on a heavy skull-cap,
and buttoned his thick overcoat close up to his neck. He was trembling
violently, but whether it was from the cold or excitement he did not
know. He had never been out on a third alarm before, and the thought
that the very next minute might send him out into the biting storm on an
errand such as the one that had cost his father his life, sent the blood
tingling through his veins.
“Jump in, Bruce!”
It was Chief Trask who said this. And as the boy made answer he
continued in his sharp soldierly voice, “If we get a third alarm I want
you to come with me in the wagon.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the brass gong sounded for
a third time, and almost instantly the doors were thrown back with a
roar and rumble, there was a rattle of the ropes which supported the
harness, as Weyman pulled his reins with a sharp and sudden jerk, and
Bruce, who by this time was seated in the chief’s wagon with his
superior officer beside him, felt the horse bounding forward, and the
next moment was out in the blinding storm.
Strange to say he had kept his wits about him and knew in what part of
the town the alarm-box from which the signal had come was situated. As
they passed over the threshold, Chief Trask turned the horse sharply to
the left, and then without a word, placed the reins in the boy’s hands,
stooped down and drew his helmet from under the seat of the wagon, and
put it on, and then buttoned his jacket tightly about his neck and
peered forward through the falling snow trying to catch a glimpse of the
distant fire.
“And now my chance has come,” said Bruce Decker to himself, for what
with the cold air in his face and the necessity for careful driving, his
excitement had vanished, and he felt as cool as one of the snowflakes
that settled on his cheek. “I’m going to a big fire now, and I’m going
to make a record if it costs me a leg.”
And he drove on through the snow with Chief Trask sitting in silence by
his side, and the hook and ladder company thundering along close behind
them.
“Turn here?” he said to his superior as they drew near a broad
thoroughfare leading up-town.
“Yes, and hurry up too,” was the reply, and as he pulled the horse’s
head around at the intersection of the two streets, he saw several
blocks ahead of him a brilliant, ruddy glare on the white snow that
showed where the conflagration was. He knew at once that it was a big
fire, and just then Charley Weyman, who had been rapidly gaining on him,
turned his horses to the left and attempted to go by him. This was
something the boy had not been looking for; he well knew that bad as it
was to be beaten in the race to a fire by a rival company, it would be
still worse to be passed on the way by his own truck which he was
supposed to lead. Charley was driving the three strong horses that
belonged to the apparatus, and Bruce held the reins over a sturdy black
that had been recently added to the quarters for the chief’s special
use. In an instant he had grasped the whip from its socket, and brought
it down on the broad, snowflaked back in front of him, causing the
animal to bound forward at a slightly increased gait, but not fast
enough to prevent Charles Weyman’s team from creeping slowly up to him.
Again he swung his whip, and they raced along, the boy driving with so
much vigor and skill that he soon forged ahead, and took a lead of fully
twenty yards, which he maintained until they reached the scene of the
disaster. Then he pulled up. The chief leaped to the ground, and just
then the truck thundered along with the captain standing on the
turntable close to the driver into whose ears he had been shouting his
orders.