Endurance Test Part 15

"If we c'n only hold out long enough, we're just bound to knock this old fire into a c.o.c.ked hat!" Ty managed to cry out, as he seized another bucket, and turned to look for a chance to use it.

Just then he noticed a small girl standing near by, sobbing as if her heart would break. She seemed to be looking up toward the second story windows of the house that was on fire, as though there might be something that she longed to save up there.

Ty was immediately thrilled with the thought that it might be a human being. n.o.body had as yet said anything about a missing person, whether a child, a very old man, or a woman; but this might come from the fact that such tremendous excitement held everybody in its grip.

Ty had read about daring feats which lads no older than himself had performed at such critical times. Perhaps within his soul there burned a desire to outs.h.i.+ne these heroes of fact and fiction; and do something to make the name of Tyrus Collins go ringing down the ages, on the annals of heroes who have risked their lives in order to save others.

At any rate, as soon as he had emptied the bucket he was holding, he pa.s.sed it along to the nearest woman, and then whirled upon the little girl.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked.

She turned to him eagerly.

"Oh, he'll be burned, my little baby, Bennie!" she wailed, wringing her hands as if in the greatest woe.

Ty was thrilled by the words. Here then was the golden opportunity he had long sought. A baby, she had said, forgotten in the mad rush and excitement. And to him had come the chance to show of what metal scouts were made.

"Where is he--show me the window of the room!" he demanded in such a stern tone that the child shrank back; but she managed to point upward and say:

"That window--it's the little room over the front hall! Oh, if you could only bring him out, mister; everybody's too busy to remember poor little Bennie!"

That finished Ty. He heard the call to duty and was off. Still, he kept his wits about him fairly well, and did not plunge recklessly into the building.

His first act was to take another look upward, so that he might locate the window she had mentioned, and remember which it was when groping about the interior. Elmer was close by; but although he turned toward the patrol leader at first, Ty changed his mind, fearing that he might be interfered with in his bold designs.

No, if a rescue must be made, he would go it alone; and hence all the glory that was coming would be his.

"Here, take that full bucket and follow me, Ty!" called Elmer, who saw a chance to deluge a threatened point in such a way that the fire would be fully beaten back in that quarter.

He supposed the other was carrying out his suggestion, and did not know any different until on turning he found himself face to face with Landy, who had quickly taken the place of the one called upon.

"Where's Ty?" asked Elmer, as upon looking around he failed to discover the figure of his late a.s.sistant.

"He's gone in!" declared Landy, seeming to be a little appalled by something he had witnessed.

"Gone in where?" continued the other, hardly understanding what was meant.

"He rushed right into the house like he'd lost his senses, Elmer; whatever do you think made him act like that?" Landy replied.

The patrol leader looked aghast.

"I'm sure I don't know," he replied, "unless he heard that some one was in there, and might be smothered or burned. But it was a nervy thing for Ty to do. I only hope he comes out again all right!"

CHAPTER XII.

SHOWING THEIR METTLE.

"OH, thay, can't we do anything to thave him?"

It was, of course, Ted, with his lisp, who said this. He had come up while the others were talking, and seemed to understand the situation; perhaps he had even witnessed the strange dash of Ty Collins into the burning farmhouse.

Elmer shook his head in the negative, as he replied:

"You see, the smoke is so heavy that even if one of us did go in, the chances are he'd never be able to find Ty. We'll have to let him alone.

Ty has a long head on him, and generally knows what he's doing. Let's work away here as fast as they fetch us the full buckets, and hope our chum will get out again. Here, hand me that pail, Ted; and get busy, Landy. No time to be staring around."

Landy seemed to be half stunned because of the queer actions of the scout who had entered the house. He was standing there looking up at the row of windows, out of which the smoke curled and eddied, as though he expected an answer to the puzzling question there.

But the energy of the patrol leader influenced him; and taking the bucket that had reached the end of the line of men and women, he hastened to dash its contents in the spot Elmer indicated.

The boys were all showing more or less signs of exhaustion by this time, owing to the terrific heat, caused by the stickiness of the weather, and the influence of the fire. But not one of them gave any indication of showing the white feather. They seemed to feel that the honor of the scouts was involved in this fight for the farmer's home; and with set teeth they continued to ply the water.

"We're gaining a little all the time, fellows!" exclaimed Elmer, meaning to bolster up the courage of both Ted and Landy; though often he would cast an anxious eye up at those mute windows, as though beginning to fear that the missing chum would never again appear.

"Yeth," said Ted, dolefully, "but every time we leave a plathe to go to a new one, the fire tharth out again freth ath a daithy. If only a lot more men would come to help uth out, we might get it under."

"We will do it, boys, just make up your minds to that," gasped Elmer, as he once more gripped a big stable bucket and started back to the window through which he expected to hurl the contents. "We've got the grit to stick to the job to the bitter end, and grit wins the day every time.

Hurry up there with that other pail; and tell them to find some more, if they can. Anything will do that can hold water. We've just _got_ to put this thing out! That's the way, Landy; you did a good job that time!"

Those words of praise did more to inspire new faith and confidence in the heart of the almost exhausted fat boy than anything else could have done. He seemed to pluck up fresh courage, braced himself to his task, and even grinned at Elmer, although it was a sickly attempt at a smile.

Landy was, indeed, a sight just then. He was wet to the skin with perspiration and spilled water from the creek. Besides, his usually jolly face was streaked with a series of queer marks, where the black smoke had found lodgment, and been ground in every time he drew his sleeve across his smarting eyes.

But then the others were little better off, though possibly they did not feel the terrible heat quite so much as the stout youth. Regardless of the damage to their clothes they labored faithfully on, determined that the Hickory Ridge troop was bound to receive new honor because of what they did at the Brady fire.

Seconds had merged into minutes, and Elmer's anxiety grew to an alarming extent. What if poor Ty had, indeed, fallen in the midst of that smoke and was lying there now in the house helpless?

It was a terrible thought, and made him s.h.i.+ver, even though at the time he was also burning with the heat. Suffocation was just as bad as the fire itself; and Elmer began to argue with himself that perhaps it was his sacred duty to rush into the house in the endeavor to find Ty.

He looked at Landy and Ted with almost pity in his eyes, and yet at that moment the young patrol leader was proud of his chums. Never had there been a test of endurance where the stake meant so much. If they could save the Brady home surely that were far better than any prize which might have fallen to their prowess because of a great hike, or a swimming distance match!

Suddenly he heard Landy give a shrill yell.

"There he is, Elmer! Hurrah for Ty!"

The fat boy was pointing a trembling finger upward; and following its general direction Elmer saw a head thrust forth from a certain window in the second story.

Ty did not seem disposed to pay the slightest attention to his chums, though the three of them stood there waving their hands and shouting. He was beckoning wildly to the little girl who had been standing near by all the while, with her eager eyes riveted on the window above, just as though she expected a miracle to be wrought in her favor.

When Ty's head poked into view as through a curtain, for eddies of smoke were all around the scout, the child began to dance up and down, and clap her hands. At that moment Ty Collins came nearer to being a real hero in the eyes of a girl than ever before in all his life.

"Come closer!" he shouted, and as she did so, he continued: "Where did you say Bennie was, up here? Is this the room?"

"Yes, yes," she replied, nodding her head at the same time, as if in fear lest he might not hear her childish voice in the midst of so much noise, with women calling, and newcomers asking questions as they reached the scene.