  “There it is, down there!” exclaimed Tubby, pointing back toward the part of the village they had just left. A red, flickering glare was already illuminating the sky in that part of the place. Clearly it was the fire. As they gazed, other shouts were added to the first outcry. “Come on!” shouted Rob, starting off at top speed in that direction. But as he set off another idea occurred to him. The firehouse was not far from Tubby’s house—on the next block, in fact. “You fellows go ahead!” shouted Rob, turning. He dashed off toward the firehouse in which the old-fashioned hand pump engine was kept. On top of the place was a big bell, the rope of which hung down in front of the building. Rob seized it as he arrived at the place, and started a wild clamor ringing out. “That will rouse out the Boy Scouts,” he muttered; “they all know what to do when they hear the fire bell.” The boy was right. Hardly had the echoes of the tocsin died out before from dozens of houses boyish figures came pouring. Boy Scouts every one of them, and ready for active duty. Little Andy, the Eagles’ bugler, went tearing past as Rob dropped the bell rope, satisfied that the alarm had been well-sounded. He was racing on when Rob seized him by the shoulder. “Sound the assembly!” he ordered. Andy, considerably startled at first, quickly recovered himself, and placed the bugle to his lips. The sibilant call was soon sounding. In less than five minutes the Boy Scouts had obediently gathered at the firehouse, and, under Rob’s directions, were falling in to await orders. Dale Harding was there, too, with the Hawks, and the two patrols eagerly hung on the next word of command. Down the street came Boffy Groggs, the janitor of the firehouse. He was half asleep and was regarding the key he carried in his hand as if he hardly knew what to do with it. The volunteer firemen of the village had not yet put in an appearance. “Putting on their fancy uniforms,” guessed Rob, as Boffy came mooning along. “Hey, Boffy, give me that!” shouted Rob, as he saw the key in the sleepy old man’s hand. “Fire in your hat?” inquired old Boffy, who was somewhat deaf. “No, give me that!” snapped Rob. “Quick, there’s no time to lose!” “I haven’t got on my shoes, and that’s a fact,” grunted Boffy, comprehendingly. “I’ll go back and put them on.” He was actually starting back when Rob seized the key from his hand. “Hey! Hey!” shouted Boffy, indignant at being robbed of his authority, as he deemed it, “give that back, Rob Blake, you’ve got no right——” “To be wasting time here,” exclaimed Rob, impatiently, and hastily opening the firehouse door; “that’s true enough, Boffy—Hullo, Tubby, where is the fire?” “It’s—it’s at Paul Perkins’s,” exclaimed the fat boy, who had just come racing up; “the wagon house—poof—it——” He stopped, all out of breath, and gasped like a newly-landed fish. “Out with the engine, boys, and race her down to Paul Perkins’s place!” ordered Rob, not waiting to hear the rest. With a shout the Boy Scouts swept into the engine house, and soon were tailing onto the long ropes by which the engine was dragged. “Forward! Double quick!” came the next order. “Here! Here!” shouted Boffy. “We’re going to the fire. Out of the way, Boffy!” yelled the boys. “It’s not for hire! Bring it back!” shouted the hard-of-hearing janitor. “Forward!” roared Rob and Dale Harding in a breath. Instantly the wheels began to revolve, and the ponderous machine came trundling out of the shed, and an instant later was being raced down the street, drawn by strong, young arms. Cheering like soldiers, the Boy Scouts dashed along. Old Boffy sprang back as the big machine crashed past him. “Come back! Come back!” he yelled, as it vanished in the distance. As Tubby had reported, it was the wagon house which was on fire. As the Boy Scouts came racing up with the engine, yellow flames were licking hungrily at its eastern end. A red glow spread all about, and the air was filled with the sharp, acrid smell of blazing wood. “Here you, and you, and you,” ordered Rob, singling out three lads, “take that hose down to the brook. The rest of you tail on to the hand-brakes.” In an instant the lads ordered to carry the hose to the creek were off, and it was not more than five minutes before the pumps began to suck. Presently, from the clanking apparatus, there began to pour a feeble stream. It strengthened as the engine got limbered up and soon quite a force of water was spurting upon the flames. They hissed and set up clouds of steam as the cold water struck them. “Hooray!” shouted the boys at the brakes, but their leaders quickly silenced them. “Save your wind to work the pumps,” ordered Dale Harding. “The machine! The machine!” cried a voice, and Paul Perkins, pale and blackened with soot and flying embers, came dashing in among them. The lad’s hands were cut and bleeding. “I tried to drag it out by myself, but I couldn’t,” he explained to Rob. “Great Scott, I forgot all about that,” exclaimed Rob. “Come on, fellows, let’s get Paul’s machine out of there. I guess we can save it yet.” It looked doubtful, however, if this could be accomplished. The flames now were leaping savagely up, but as yet they were confined to one end of the building. The wind, though, was driving them angrily forward, devouring the old dried timbers with the greed of a ferocious monster. “Open those doors!” shouted Rob, and the next instant the big wooden bar had fallen from the portals as Paul unlocked the stout padlock holding them. As they swung open, the boys could see the machine standing in the centre of the place, illumined with a red glare. The heat that drove out was as intense as if they had opened the doors of a bake oven, but they didn’t flinch. Led by Rob and Dale Harding, they plunged into the fiery place. The heat seemed as if it would split their skins and singe their hair, but they paid little attention to it in the excitement of the moment. “Lay hold of those runners, boys,” cried Dale, “we’ll drag her out that way.” “Good scheme,” panted Rob, bending over and seizing hold. But the machine was heavy and refused to budge. “We need a rope,” suggested Merritt. “No time to get it,” panted Rob; “come on, try again.” They strained till their muscles cracked, and this time the bulky contrivance slipped forward a little. Working with might and main, they had almost succeeded in getting it to a place of safety when there was a sudden shout from Paul. “The gasolene. That tank’s full of it.” “Great Scott, it will blow up!” cried Dale Harding. As he spoke a cloud of sparks and hissing embers flew about them, driven from the burning end of the barn by a puff of wind. “Don’t quit!” urged Rob, as they hesitated; “no Boy Scout ever quits. We’ve tackled this job; let’s see it through.” His words put heart into the somewhat scared boys, and once more they bent their efforts to dragging out the machine. This time they managed to run it fairly beyond the danger line, and it was as well that they did so at that moment, for the feeble stream thrown by the hand-engine had had little effect on the flames, and by now one entire end of the wagon house had been burned away. By this time, also, a big crowd had gathered, and as Rob and his companions, scorched and singed, stood triumphantly by the side of the machine they had rescued, they could hear angry shouts and the sounds of an argument coming from the direction of the engine. Elbowing their way through the throng, many members of which sought to detain and congratulate them, the lads found that the regular firemen had arrived and were attempting to wrest the hand-brakes from the Boy Scouts. The boys were, somewhat naturally, protesting. Just as Rob and his friends came up, one big, hulking fellow laid hands on little Joe Digby and was about to hurl him backward out of the crowd. “You young monkey!” he exclaimed; “you kids had no business to steal our engine!” “Good thing they did,” howled the crowd. “If they hadn’t the whole village might have been burned by the time you fellows got on your uniforms.” “You’re all right at a firemen’s picnic, but no good at a fire,” shouted someone. “’Ray for the Boy Scouts,” came another cry. “Shut up!” roared the exasperated firemen, reddening under their shiny helmets, all glistening with paint and decorations. “Here, this has got to stop,” said Rob, stepping forward. “Scouts, let go of the engine. We’ve done our part of the work; now let them get busy.” “That’s right, Rob,” came his father’s voice out of the crowd; “while they were arguing the fire was burning. Work those pumps, boys.” “’Ray!” yelled the crowd again, as the firemen began to pump strenuously. The machine clanked and rattled like a thresher, and a great stream of water poured forth, but, unfortunately it had no effect upon the blaze. “The house! The house!” came a sudden cry in a woman’s voice. “Sparks are falling on the roof. It’ll be on fire in a minute.” It was Mrs. Perkins. With her hair in curl papers and a wonderful flannel nightgown on, she stood in the back door of her home and yelled this warning. At any other time the boys might have felt inclined to laugh. The situation now was too serious for that, however. As she spoke, a perfect hail of sparks were being driven upon the shingled roof. It was dry and old, and was already beginning to smolder. “Get that ladder,” shouted Merritt, whose sharp eyes had spied one leaning against an old tree some distance from the house. In an instant a dozen pairs of Boy Scout hands had carried it to the scene. “Run her up, boys, and get all the buckets you can,” ordered Rob, as the ladder was placed in position. Calling Dale Harding, Merritt and Tubby, the boy sprang up toward the roof. Behind him, upon the ladder, stood the others. They had guessed his purpose—to form a bucket line from the pump to the roof. With Hiram at the pump handle, and plenty of willing volunteers to relieve him when he tired, buckets and tin pails of water were soon passing rapidly along the line and being splashed over the roof. As fast as Rob got one section wetted, he passed on to another, till the whole covering of the house was drenched, and there was no danger of the place catching. By this time, the wonderful motor-scooter had, too, been dragged beyond the reach of the flames, and although the wagon house was speedily reduced to a heap of glowing embers, the invention, for which Freeman Hunt and his father had striven so desperately, was safe. As the crowd saw that the excitement was over, it began to break up and melt away, till only a few persons were left about the ruins. Among these lingerers were Stonington Hunt and his worthy son. The elder of the two seemed to be in a great rage. He gritted his teeth as he gazed at the Boy Scouts clustering about Paul’s machine, and spoke to his offspring in a low voice. “Luck seems to have turned against me of late,” he muttered, savagely; “another failure. But either I’ll have that machine or no one else shall, or my name’s not Stonington Hunt.” “We started the fire at the wrong end of the wagon house, pop,” rejoined his son, in a low voice, but low as his tones were, his father seemed seized with alarm. “Not a word, Freeman,” he muttered hoarsely, looking about him in a scared sort of way. “Remember we know nothing about the fire. We were in bed when it started, and raced down here to find out what terrible calamity threatened our fair village.” Freeman Hunt nodded comprehendingly. “All right, pop; mum’s the word,” he breathed, “but we’ll try again.” “Those brats are not through with me yet by a good sight,” rejoined his father, vindictively, by way of reply. “Nor with me,” chimed in Freeman. Soon after this worthy pair left the place, having been unnoticed by Rob or any of his chums or scouts. It was Tubby who, poking about the ruins after his usual inquisitive fashion, made a sudden discovery, a short time later. He had come across a piece of wood which was unburned, having been thrown aside by Paul Perkins in his first efforts to quell the fire. The boy sniffed this bit of wood curiously and then summoned his friends. “Smell that,” he demanded of them in turn. Each lad took a sniff of the proffered bit of wood and passed it on to the next in silence. “Well?” interrogated Tubby, after it passed a dozen hands, “what is it?” “Kerosene,” was the unanimous answer. “That’s right,” rejoined Rob; “fellows, it’s up to the Boy Scouts to find out who set fire to Paul Perkins’s wagon house, and tried to destroy his machine.” “Maybe this will help us do it,” suggested Tubby, meditatively. As he spoke he extended the oil-soaked fragment into the glare of a lantern hanging from the fire engine. On it they could then see distinctly was the impress of a man’s thumb. “I’ve heard of robbers and bad men being detected through just such imprints,” declared Rob; “may be it will work in this case. They say no two men’s thumb prints are alike.” “If that’s so, we’d better start out making a collection,” suggested Tubby, “and I’ve got an idea that there is one man in this town whose imprint would be of interest in that connection.” “Who?” queried a dozen eager Boy Scout voices. “The man in the moon,” laughed the fat youth, pocketing the fragment of wood. But it was to be a long time before he had an opportunity to use it to confirm his suspicions. |
|
