The Young Firemen of Lakeville; Or, Herbert Dare's Pluck Read online

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  "The other animals followed in an instant."]

  THE YOUNG FIREMEN OF LAKEVILLEOR HERBERT DARE'S PLUCK

  BY

  FRANK V. WEBSTER

  Author Of "Only A Farm Boy," "The Newsboy Partners," "TheYoung Treasure Hunter," "Bob The Castaway," Etc.

  ILLUSTRATED

  1909

  BOOKS FOR BOYS

  By FRANK V. WEBSTER

  12mo. Illustrated. Bound in cloth.

  ONLY A FARM BOY, Or Dan Hardy's Rise in Life TOM THE TELEPHONE BOY, Or The Mystery of a Message THE BOY FROM THE RANCH, Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences THE YOUNG TREASURE HUNTER, Or Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska BOB THE CASTAWAY, Or The Wreck of the Eagle THE YOUNG FIREMEN OF LAKEVILLE, Or Herbert Dare's Pluck THE NEWSBOY PARTNERS, Or Who Was Dick Box? THE BOY PILOT OF THE LAKES, Or Nat Morton's Perils TWO BOY GOLD MINERS, Or Lost in the Mountains JACK THE RUNAWAY, Or On the Road with a Circus

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I A MIDNIGHT ALARM

  II IN PERIL

  III TALKING IT OVER

  IV BERT HAS A PLAN

  V BUYING THE ENGINE

  VI THE FIRST RUN

  VII BERT SAVES A TRAMP

  VIII ON THE LAKE

  IX A NARROW ESCAPE

  X MYSTERIOUS ACTIONS

  XI SUSPICIONS AROUSED

  XII SAGGER'S FIRE LOSS

  XIII SINGING A DIFFERENT TUNE

  XIV A DANGEROUS GAME

  XV A GENEROUS OFFER

  XVI MR. BERGMAN'S PLANS

  XVII THE ENGINES ARRIVE

  XVIII THE PARADE AND PICNIC

  XIX WINNING THE TRUMPET

  XX A FALSE ALARM

  XXI THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

  XXII THE STENOGRAPHER'S SUSPICIONS

  XXIII A BRAVE RESCUE

  XXIV AN ENCOUNTER WITH MUCHMORE

  XXV THE MYSTERY SOLVED--CONCLUSION

  CHAPTER I

  A MIDNIGHT ALARM

  "Fire! Fire! Turn out, everybody! Fire! Fire!"

  This cry, coming like a clarion call, at midnight, awoke theinhabitants of the peaceful little New England village of Lakeville.

  "Fire! Fire!"

  Heads were thrust out of hastily-raised windows. Men and women lookedup and down the street, and then glanced around to detect thereddening in the sky that would indicate where the blaze was. Timidwomen began sniffing suspiciously, to learn if it was their own homeswhich, unsuspectingly, had become ignited.

  "Fire! Fire! Stimson's barn is burning! Fire! Fire!"

  A man ran down the principal village street, shouting as he ran. Atsome doors he paused long enough to pound with his fist, awakening thedwellers who had not heard his call, for he was Rodney Stickler, thetown constable and watchman, whose duty it was to sound the firealarm, and summon the bucket brigade, in the event of a blaze.

  "Hurry up!" Constable Stickler shouted, as he ran from house to house,striking with his fist on the doors of the residences where themembers of the bucket brigade lived. "The barn is 'most gone! Fire!Fire!"

  Men jumped from bed, pulled on shirts, trousers, and shoes or boots,and thus scantily attired, rushed forth to do battle with the flames.

  In a small cottage, near the end of the village street, a lad, hearingthe midnight alarm, got up and hurried to the window. He could makeout the short, stocky form of Constable Stickler rushing about. Then,off to the left, he could see a dull glow in the sky. There was, also,the smell of wood burning.

  "What is it, Herbert?" asked a woman's voice from another room.

  "Fire, mother," replied Herbert Dare. "Mr. Stickler is giving thealarm."

  "Whose place is it? I hope it isn't around here. Oh! fire is adreadful thing! Where is it, Herbert?" And Mrs. Dare put on adressing-gown and came into her son's room.

  "I think he said it was Mr. Stimson's barn, mother. I can see a blazeover in that direction."

  "Mr. Stimson's barn? He has a fine lot of cattle in it. Oh, I hopethey save the poor creatures!"

  Herbert, or, as he was usually called by his chums, Bert, grabbed uphis clothes from a chair, and began to sort them in the darkness,looking for his trousers.

  "What are you doing, Herbert?" asked his mother.

  "I'm going to dress."

  "What for?"

  "I'm going to the fire."

  "Herbert! Don't go! You might get hurt. Suppose some of the horsesshould run away and trample on you? Don't go!"

  "I must, mother. They'll need all the help they can get. I must go!"

  From the village street once more came the alarm.

  "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

  Now, however, more voices were shouting it. There was also the rush offeet, and Bert, peering from the window, saw a crowd of men and boys,many of them carrying buckets, hastening along. The glare in the skyhad become brighter.

  "I'm going to dress and go, mother," said the boy. "I want to aid allI can. We'd like help if our house was on fire."

  "Oh, Herbert! Don't suggest such dreadful things!"

  Mrs. Dare left her son's room, and in a few minutes he had dressedsufficiently to go out.

  "Now do be careful, Herbert," called his mother, as he ran downstairs."If anything should happen to you, I don't know what I'd do."

  "I'll be careful."

  Herbert Dare was the only son of a widow, Mrs. Roscoe Dare. Herhusband had died several years previous, leaving her a small income,barely sufficient to support herself and her son. It may be added herethat Mr. Dare had been a city fireman before his marriage. This,perhaps, accounted in a measure for the interest Herbert took in allalarms and conflagrations.

  "It certainly looks like a big fire," thought the boy, as he brokeinto a run down the street. He soon caught up with the crowd hasteningto the blaze.

  "Hello, Bert!" shouted a lad to him. "Going to help put the fire out?"

  "If they need me, Vincent. I see you have your bucket."

  "Yep," replied Vincent Templer, one of Bert's chums. "It's dad's. Hebelongs to the bucket brigade, but he's away from home, and I tookit."

  "I wish I had one."

  "Oh, I guess they'll have plenty at the barn."

  "They'll need 'em, for it looks as if it was pretty well on fire."

  The reflection of the blaze was now so bright that objects in thestreet could be plainly seen, and faces easily distinguished at aconsiderable distance.

  "There's Cole Bishop!" said Bert to his chum, pointing to another lad,who was running along, evidently much out of breath, as he was quitefat.

  "Hello, Cole!" called Bert.

  "Hello--Bert! Goin'--to--the--fire?" came from Cole, with a puffbetween each word.

  "Naw, we're goin' to a Sunday school picnic," replied Vincent, who wassomething of a joker.

  "Humph! Funny--ain't--you!" remarked Cole.

  The boys continued to speed on toward the burning barn, which was oneof the buildings belonging to Anderson Stimson, a farmer, and locatedjust on the edge of the village. The crowd had increased, and severalscore of people were on their way to the conflagration.

  "They'll--have--a--hot--time--putting--out--that--fire," spoke Cole,with labored breath. "They--only--got--buckets."

  "That's all they've had in Lakeville since the time it was founded byChristopher Columbus," remarked Vincent. "It's a good thing we don'thave many fires."

  "If I had my force pump I could show--show--'em--how--to--squirt--water,"said Cole, who had begun the first part of the sentence veryfast, but who had
to slow down on the last section. He was almostcompletely out of breath.

  "Why didn't you bring it along?" asked Bert.

  "Huh! How--could--I--when--it's--fast--on--the--cistern?"

  That argument was, of course, unanswerable. Cole Bishop was a ladquite fond of mechanics, and was usually engaged in making some newkind of machinery. His force pump was his latest effort, and he wasquite proud of it.

  "Say! I should think it was burning!" suddenly exclaimed Bert, as heand his chums turned a corner of the street and came in full view ofthe blazing barn. The structure seemed enveloped in flames, greattongues of fire leaping high in the air, and a black pall of smokehovering like an immense cloud above it. "They can't save that!"

  "Guess not!" added Vincent. "What good are buckets in a blaze likethat? You can't get near enough to throw the water on."

  "Wish--I--had--my--force--pump," panted Cole.

  By this time the boys had joined the crowd that was already at thescene of the fire. The heat could be felt some distance away.

  "Come on, everybody with buckets!" cried Constable Stickler, whosometimes assumed charge of the bucket brigade. "Form a line from thehorse trough to the barn. Pass the full buckets up one side and theempty ones down the other. Let the boys pass the empty buckets an' themen the full ones."

  "Let's form two lines for full buckets," proposed another man.

  "We'll need three," put in a third individual.

  "Who's runnin' this here fire, I'd like to know?" inquired theconstable indignantly. "Git to work now."

  "Yes, I guess they'd better, or there won't be any barn to save,"spoke Bert.

  The flames were crackling furiously. The crowd was constantlyincreasing, and nearly every man had a bucket or pail. Some hadbrought their wives' dishpans, as they could not find their pails inthe darkness and confusion.

  "Come on, Bert, let's get in line," suggested Vincent.

  "Yes--let--me--git--to--a--place--where--I--can--rest," begged Cole.

  "Here, I'll help," added John Boll, another of Bert's chums.

  "I'd rather pass the full buckets," said Tom Donnell.

  "Now then, everybody begin to pass," cried the constable, who had hismen in some kind of shape. There were three lines extending from theburning barn to the horse trough, some distance away. The trough wasfed by a pipe, running from a spring, and there was plenty of water.

  "Dip an' pass," cried the constable, and the word went along thelines. Men standing near the trough dipped their pails in, handed themto the person standing next, and so, from hand to hand went thedripping buckets of water. At last the pail reached the end of theline, and the man nearest the blaze proceeded to throw on thequenching fluid.

  But here a new difficulty presented itself. The blaze was so hot thatno person could approach close enough to make the water effective. Thewhole front of the barn was in flames.

  "This ain't going to be no good!" exclaimed one of the men on the endof a line up which the full buckets traveled. He tried to throw thewater on the flames, but, approaching as close as he dared, he couldnot come within ten feet of the fire.

  "I should say not," agreed his companion.

  "Hey! What's the matter?" called the constable. "Why don't you throwthe water on the flames, instead of on the ground?"

  "Let's see you do it," was the angry answer.

  "We'll have to go around to the back, and throw the water on there,"was the advice of a tall, lanky farmer.

  "What good'll that do?"

  "Wa'al, we can't do no good here."

  "That's so," was the general agreement.

  The lines began to shift, to get out of the heat of the blaze.Meanwhile, those at the trough, not understanding what was going on,continued to pass up the full buckets, but as no one gathered up theempty ones to pass back, the waiting line of boys had nothing to do.Several began to leave, to get in a position where they could view theblaze better.

  "Here, where are you boys going?" demanded Constable Stickler, who wasrunning back and forth, not knowing what to do.

  "There isn't anything for us to do," replied Bert. "We can't save thatbarn with buckets. We'd better help get some of the machinery andcattle out."

  "That's right," added Vincent, and several men agreed with this.

  "You--ought to have my force pump," spluttered Cole Bishop, who hadnow recovered his breath.

  "Pass up the buckets! Pass the buckets!" was the cry that now camefrom the line of men, that had been extended to reach around to therear of the barn, where, for the time being, there was no fire. "Passthe buckets!"

  "Yes, pass the buckets!" shouted the constable. "Here, boys, come backto your places!" For a number of the boys had left, and there werelong gaps in the line.

  "Can't something be done to save the barn?" cried Mr. Stimson, who hadbeen rushing back and forth, mainly engaged in carrying out somevaluable harness from the blazing structure.

  "We're tryin' to," replied the constable.

  "Are all the cattle out?" asked Bert.

  "Cattle? Land, no; I forgot all about them!" exclaimed the farmer. "Iwas busy taking my valuable harness out, and saving some of my deedsand mortgages in the house. I'm afraid that'll go next!"

  "The house is in no danger as long as the wind keeps this way," saidBert, "but the cattle are. How many are in the barn?"

  "Five horses and six cows. The cows are in the lower part. They're inno danger yet, but I guess the horses are done for. I forgot all about'em!"

  At that moment a shrill cry, almost like a human being in agony, roseabove the crackle of the flames.

  "Those are the horses!" cried Bert. "Come on! We'll try to save 'em!"