THE FIRE ON THE STEAMER
“That’s the way to do it!”
The cry came as Tom knocked a neat liner out to center field. He managed
to get to first base with ease, while Dick, on the alert, slid to the
home plate just before the ball came in.
“That gives us five runs, anyway!” was Stanley’s comment. “Now, Spud, see
what you can do.”
“Here is where I knock one across the river and back,” declared Spud
Jackson, as he came forward with a bat. “Better chase your men away out,”
he added to Frank Holden.
“They can use nets,” answered the pitcher with a grin.
Spud had a ball and a strike called on him and then met the leather and
sent it to the shortstop. Tom had to run for second and he legged it with
might and main. But the ball got there ahead of him and he was put out,
and so was the runner at first.
“Wow!” cried Songbird. “Thought you were going to knock the ball across
the river and back, Spud.”
“So I did,” answered Spud, as he walked up from first. “It landed on the
other side, bounced back, and the shortstop got it. Fierce luck, eh?” And
he cut a face that made many of the students standing by laugh outright.
In the next inning the other side added two runs to their total. One of
these runs was made by Sam, much to the youngest Rover’s satisfaction.
“We’ve got you going!” he cried, to his brothers and the others. “Might
as well give up.”
“Huh! we haven’t started yet,” retorted Tom. He turned to William
Philander Tubbs, who had strolled near. “Say, Tubby, old boy, lend me
your green socks for luck, will you?”
“Oh, Tom, please don’t ask me to—ah—lend those socks,” pleaded William
Philander, innocently. “They are the only pair of that shade I have, and
the young ladies say——”
“They can’t resist you when you have them on,” finished Tom. “All right,
if you want me to lose the game, keep the socks,” and the fun-loving
Rover put on a mournful look.
“But, my dear Tom, how can my socks have anything to do with the game?”
questioned the dude, helplessly.
“Why, it’s a psychological phenomena, Tublets. Sort of an inter-mental
telepathy, so to speak—a rhomboid compendium indexus, as it were. Of
course you understand,” said Tom, soberly.
“Why—ah—I don’t think I do, Tom,” stammered the dude. “But I can’t loan
the socks, really I can’t!” And he backed away with all possible haste,
while some of the students poked each other in the ribs and some laughed
outright.
“Now then, here is where we go at ’em, hammer and tongs!” cried Dick, as
he walked to the plate. And he met the first ball pitched and lined a
beautiful three-bagger to deep center.
“Hurrah! That’s the way to do it!” yelled Tom. “Leg it, old man, leg it!”
“We’ve struck our gait!” sang out another player. “Now, Tom, you’ve got
to bring him home sure.”
Tom was on the alert and after one strike managed to send the ball down
into left field. Dick came home and the batter got to second, although it
was a tight squeeze.
Spud was up next, and this time his face wore a “do-or-die” look. He had
two balls called on him, and then whack! his bat struck the ball and the
horsehide went sailing far over the right fielder’s head.
“Say, that’s a beaut!”
“Come on in, Tom!”
“Make it a two-bagger, Spud!”
“You can get to third if you try!” yelled Dick, and Spud did try and
landed in a cloud of dust on third base just a second before the ball got
there.
“Now then, Wilson, bring Spud in,” said Dick, to the next fellow at the
bat.
“Make it a homer and bring yourself in too, Wilson,” added Tom.
“By chimminy! Make him two home runs while you are at it alretty!” cried
Max Spangler, with a broad smile. Since arriving at Brill the German
American lad had become quite a baseball “fan.”
“Hi, there, you fellows!” came unexpectedly from the center fielder.
“What’s the matter?” yelled back Frank Holden, stepping out of the
pitcher’s box and turning around.
“Something is wrong on the river.”
“Wrong on the river?” queried several, in a chorus.
“Yes. Don’t you hear the screaming?”
“Time!” cried the umpire, and the game came to a stop.
“Say, that is somebody screaming!” exclaimed Stanley. “Sounds like a
girl’s voice.”
“It’s from that excursion boat!” said another student. And as he spoke he
pointed to a small river steamer, gaily decorated with flags and bunting,
that had appeared around a bend of the stream.
“Why, that’s the Thistle!” ejaculated Dick.
“The Thistle?” repeated Sam. “Oh, Dick, that’s the steamer the girls from
Hope were going to use for their picnic up the river!”
“I know it.”
“Do you suppose Grace and Nellie and Dora are on board?”
“More than likely.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“They are yelling like Indians!” cried the center fielder. “Come on,
something is wrong, sure!”
On the instant the game of baseball was forgotten, and like a drove of
wild horses the college boys raced down to the edge of the river, which
at this point was over a quarter of a mile wide but quite shallow. As
they did this they heard the steam whistle of the Thistle sound out loud
and long.
“That’s a call for assistance, that’s certain,” said Dick.
“Oh, I hope the girls are safe!” murmured his youngest brother.
“She’s on fire, that’s what’s the matter!” exclaimed Tom. “See the smoke
coming from the cabin!”
“Fire! fire! fire!” was the cry taken up on all sides. “The steamer is on
fire!”
“Why don’t they run to the dock?” asked one of the students.
“Can’t—it isn’t deep enough,” was the reply. “They are going to dredge
out the channel this summer.”
“They are turning towards shore!” came, a second later, and then it could
be seen that the Thistle had turned partly around. But the next instant
the vessel ran into a mud shoal and there she stuck.
“Come on, let us get out and help those who are on board!” cried Dick,
and started on a run for the college boathouse, located two hundred yards
further up the shore.
The alarm was now general, and fully two score of students and several of
the faculty, as well as some workmen, were running for the boathouse, to
get out the rowboats and other craft usually housed there.
“Stanley, how about your gasolene launch?” questioned Dick, as they raced
along the river bank.
“She’s all ready to use,” was the answer. “I had her out a little while
early this morning.”
“Then I’ll go out with you in that, if you say so.”
“Sure,” was the ready response.
“Want us?” queried Tom.
“You and Sam better bring another boat,” answered Dick. “The more the
better. The Thistle must have quite a crowd on board—if all the Hope
students went on that picnic.”
“Grace said about thirty girls were going,” replied Sam. “Oh, if they get
burned——”
“They won’t wait for that—they’ll jump into the river first,” answered
Tom soberly. For the time being all the fun was knocked out of him.
While talking, the boys had been busy with the boats. Stanley’s gasolene
launch was pushed out, and he and Dick leaped aboard, and the latter set
the flywheel going. The engine was in good running order, and soon a
steady put-put! sounded out, and the craft headed for the burning
steamer. But, as quick as Dick and Stanley were in their movements, Tom
and Sam were equally alert, and as the launch moved away Tom and his
brother scrambled into a rowboat, oars in hand, and caught fast to the
power craft with a boathook.
“You can pull us as well as not,” said Tom.
“Right you are,” answered Stanley. “And the quicker both boats get to
that steamer the better.”
As they drew closer to the Thistle they saw a volume of smoke roll up
from the engine room. A barrel of oil had taken fire and the crew had
found it impossible to subdue the conflagration. As yet the fire was only
a small one, but there was no telling how soon it would spread, and the
seminary girls on board were panic-stricken, more especially as the
teacher who chanced to be with them was herself an extremely nervous
person.
“Oh, girls, what shall we do?” asked Grace Laning, after the first
dreadful alarm was at an end.
“Perhaps we had better jump overboard,” suggested Nellie Laning. “I don’t
want to be burned alive!” And her wide-open eyes showed her terror.
“Don’t jump yet,” said Dora Stanhope, as bravely as she could.
“Oh, girls, we’ll be burned to death! I know it, I feel it!” wailed
another seminary student.
“We are near Brill College,” said another. “Let us cry for help!” And
then commenced the screaming that reached the players on the ball field
and others near the water’s edge.
In the meantime, the captain of the steamer, aided by his men, was doing
all in his power to subdue the flames. But oil when on fire is a hard
thing to fight. The blaze was close to the engine room, and presently
both the engineer and the firemen were driven from their posts. Then the
steamer became unmanageable and drifted on the mud shoal, as already
mentioned.
“We’ll have to get out the small boats,” cried the captain. But even as
he spoke he knew that the small boats were of no avail, for they had not
been used since the Thistle had been put into commission, three years
before, and they were dried out, and would fill with water as soon as
unshipped. Life preservers were to be had, and a few of the girls were
thoughtful enough to supply themselves with these.
“Crowd her, Stanley!” cried Dick, as the launch headed straight for the
burning steamer.
“I’ll give her all she will stand,” responded the owner of the launch,
and he turned the lever down another notch. The revolutions of the
flywheel increased, and the water was churned up in a white foam at the
stern.
“Look out, back there, that you aren’t swamped!” yelled Stanley to Tom
and Sam.
“We’ll look out!” was Sam’s answer. “Only hurry up, that’s all!”
As the launch and the rowboat it was towing neared the burning steamer
the college students gazed eagerly at the forms on the forward deck of
the Thistle. Nearly all of the seminary girls were still screaming, and
some were waving their arms wildly.
“Help! help! help!” was the cry wafted over the water.
“We are coming!” yelled Dick. “Don’t jump overboard unless you are good
swimmers!”
“Dick! Dick!” screamed Dora. “Oh, Dick!”
“Dora!” he answered.
“Oh, Tom!” came from Nellie. “Please take us off!”
“Sam, you are just in time!” added Grace.
“We’ll get you off—don’t worry!” cried Dick. “Just wait till we can bring
the boats alongside and then——”
He was interrupted by a mad yell from one of the men on the steamer.
“Hurry up and leave!” yelled the man in terror. “We can’t get at the
boilers no more and I guess she is going to blow up!”