Chapter XVI
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.