Fighting the Flames
“Hadn’t we better follow the crowd, and get out of here, Ralph?”
asked Rob, when he found the sudden alarm of fire had broken up the
entertainment, and that even little Anna Burgoyne had taken
advantage of the diversion to slip back off the stage again.
“I suppose we might as well,” grumbled Ralph, “because she’s gone,
and there won’t be any more singing tonight.”
The five boys started toward the door, where quite a jam had
occurred, as many of the excited audience tried to push through at
the same time. In consequence there was a blockade, and it would
take a long time for those in the rear to emerge from the hall.
“Too slow for me,” ventured Andy. “Say, Ralph, couldn’t we get out
by way of one of these windows?”
“Let’s look and see,” added Sim.
Investigation proved the plan feasible. The ground was fourteen feet
or so below them, but there was a shed of some sort, on to which
roof they could readily pass from the window of the second-story
hall.
Ralph led the way, because he belonged to Wyoming, and really the
pilot of the party, chauffeur and all that. After him came Rob,
while the other three followed in turn, Tubby, as usual, bringing up
the rear with credit, and a super-abundance of material.
“Careful you don’t slip and slide off this shed roof,” advised Ralph
as he cautiously moved along, intending to hang from the lower end
and drop to the ground.
Tubby came near having trouble when his feet slipped; but Andy
managed to catch hold of the one in danger, and steadied him until
he could get another footing. Then one by one they lowered
themselves and dropped. Even Tubby succeeded in making a safe
retreat from the building. People were still emerging by twos and
threes from the exit of the hall as they hurried past. Evidently
they might have been kept shut up there for half an hour, losing
much worth seeing, had they been content to accept things as they
came, and never trying to escape by way of that window.
“Which way now?” bellowed Andy.
“Leave that to Ralph; he knows how the land lies!” Rob suggested.
“Yes, follow me, everybody!” the party indicated called over his
shoulder.
Away they hastened along the street, where people were already
hurrying in squads and singly, all heading in a certain direction as
though word had been passed along the line concerning the location
of the fire.
“You see, it’s in the poorer section of the town,” Ralph was telling
Rob, as they ran along side by side. “There goes another fire
engine; and I suppose the chemical crowd have already started work
on the fire, because they can get going so much faster than the
others. Listen to the shouting, will you? That sounds as if Wyoming
had been waked up, I guess.”
Rob was already alarmed, and with reason. He could see from the
glare in the heavens that the fire was dead ahead of them; indeed,
several times they had glimpsed flames shooting madly upwards. Rob
remembered that they were facing the wind almost head on, which
would mean that the conflagration must be swept on its breath
directly toward the mill and factory part of the town.
Great excitement reigned all around them, and this was growing more
intense as each dozen seconds flitted past. People began to realize
that an awful calamity actually threatened their fine little town,
and that unless the firemen were unusually successful in confining
the blaze to a few houses, there was a chance of a catastrophe that
would wipe out the better part of the entire community, and render
many families homeless, as well as depriving hundreds of their daily
tasks if the mills and factories went up in smoke.
No doubt the fire department would do everything possible to save
the town, but, after all, they were a feeble force to try and stand
in the way of that leaping blaze when fanned and whipped by a
furious wind.
The five boys had come in to attend an entertainment, but it began
to look as if they might be on hand to witness a most distressing
catastrophe. Rob was trying to think what they could do to help save
the town, should the fire actually get beyond the frantic efforts of
the few firemen with their feeble apparatus. He was only too willing
to do anything that lay in his power to render assistance; but just
then, despite his utmost efforts, no scheme appealed to him.
Many there were who would be glad to help as best they could; but it
is disheartening to find how little can be done under such
conditions. The fire had already taken such a fierce hold that the
chances of successfully fighting it and saving the rest of the town
seemed slim, indeed.
“There, they’ve got the water started on it!” called out Andy, who
had sight that enabled him to see things others were less able to
catch. “Two streams are getting busy, it seems. Good for those
firemen; they know their business, all right. But, say, the flames
just seem to laugh at all they can do. Look there the way they keep
on shooting up like they were trying to lick the clouds!”
It was indeed an impressive sight. The fire demon was hard at work
trying to defy all efforts at putting the flames down. By the red
light of the conflagration the crowd that was quickly gathering,
running this way and that in excitement, had a peculiar look to Rob,
who likened them to Indians minus their feathers and other war
paraphernalia.
“There, it’s gone and done it now!” shrilled a boy nearby; “see, the
lumber yard has caught fire. Gee! look at it going like soap, will
you?”
It was only too true. Instead of the fire being stemmed, it appeared
to be making giant strides, and extending right and left, as well as
sweeping onward with that furious wind.
Already cries of terror were arising. Some of the people who chanced
to live at the further end of the town beyond the mills and
factories started on a run for their homes, doubtless with the one
thought of getting as much of their household possessions to a place
of safety as possible before the greedy flames swept a swathe of
destruction across that region.
Rob had seen pictures representing a panic, but here was the real
thing. While some of the mob stood there and stared as though they
did not mean to miss a single feature of the burning up of the town,
others were wringing their hands and shrieking in terror as they ran
this way and that, hardly knowing what they were about.
It was really difficult to talk while all these noises were going
on. Rob had to place his lips quite close to the ear of Ralph when
he spoke.
“The wind is carrying things before it, you see, Ralph!” he called
out. “Unless I miss my guess, it’s heading straight toward the
mills.”
“Just what it is,” admitted the other, looking completely unnerved.
“If there comes a sudden and lucky shift to that breeze it’s
good-bye to all of Wyoming--mills, dwelling houses and everything.
You see, it’s got something to feed on right along, from the
cottages where it’s working now, to the factories. It’s eating its
way just like a train of wet powder will do when you touch a match
to the same, sizzling along until it reaches the end. And the worst
of it is nothing can be done to halt its triumphant march, nothing
that I can see.”
It was plain that Ralph was disheartened by the prospect confronting
the enterprising little town. He took a great interest in Wyoming,
and the impending catastrophe appalled him.
“Isn’t there something we could do to help these poor people get
their stuff out of reach of the flames, even if we can’t stop the
fire raging?” asked Tubby, whose tender heart was always ready to
bleed for any sufferer, no matter what his race, color or condition.
There were wagons backing up to the pavements, and people hurriedly
making trips back and forth between the houses and the curb,
carrying what they treasured most in their limited possessions. It
was a most pitiable sight, and one those boys were not likely to
forget for a long time.
The idea took hold of them, and they started to work, lending a
helping hand to a number of the panic-stricken families along the
street. Meanwhile the fire was eating its way gradually along. Rob
tried to figure how long at this rate of progress it would take for
it to jump across to the other side of the town, and start devouring
those splendid mills, and the machine shops, where scores and
hundreds of people were accustomed to earn their daily wage.
“An hour at the most, and it will be good-night to the place,
perhaps in a whole not less time than that,” he told himself; and
there was something akin to awe in the thought that man appeared to
be so utterly helpless to engage in a combat with the allied
elements of wind and fire, once they took the bits in their teeth,
and started to destroy all in their path.
Even where the boys were working so like beavers they could hear the
angry snap and crackle of the leaping flames. To Rob it seemed as
though they were actually laughing in derision at the futility of
the crafty brain of man to stay their onward progress.
If he could only devise some way to beat them at their own game--how
Rob cudgeled his wits to try and think of some such scheme, but
somehow the things that appealed to him seemed so silly and foolish
when pitted against such a roaring windswept mass of raging fire.
Rob had seen a forest ablaze, and knew more or less how the men who
watch the Government-owned lands are taught to act when face to face
with such a calamity. But the tactics that might be successful under
such conditions were useless here in town. It was folly to dream of
digging a trench over which the fire could not pass; and equally
useless to think of starting a small fire ahead that could be
controlled, so that when the main conflagration came to such a point
it would find nothing to feed upon.
All this went on while the boys were working as hard as they could.
Wherever they found a chance to lend a hand they pitched in with
their accustomed vim; more than a few poor families had occasion to
remember those sturdy and accommodating young fellows wearing the
khaki uniforms, who assisted them to load the wagons, and then get a
flying start for a point of safety.
Rob was beginning to feel a sense of despair as he wrestled in vain
with the perplexing problem of how to successfully fight that volume
of flame eating its way remorselessly toward the section of the town
where so much of the community’s prosperity was laid up.
Then, like an inspiration, something came to him. It almost took his
breath away, such was the wonderful nature of the idea. It was no
new invention of his, but something he remembered reading when a
city had been threatened with destruction, and the resourceful fire
fighters were compelled to take stern measures in order to check the
onrushing flames.
He looked around. Ralph fortunately was not far away, staggering
under a trunk belonging to some poor woman who had been given a
chance to place it upon a partly loaded wagon. Rob ran in that
direction. His appearance before Ralph gave the other a new thrill,
for he immediately saw from the excited look on the scout leader’s
earnest face that Rob had struck a feasible idea at last.
“I’ve got it!” cried Rob, as he seized upon the other; “come with me
as fast as you can, and as we run I’ll tell you my plan. It’s a
desperate chance, but with the help of Heaven we may save the town
yet,” and so they started off as fast as their already tired
condition would allow.