“Ring the fire alarm! Every man to his station! Someone tell the pilot to slow down! Signal to the engineer to get the pumps in gear!”
Nor were the members of the crew slow to carry out the commander’s instructions. One man rang the automatic fire alarm, that sounded in every part of the vessel. Another hurried to the bridge, where he delivered the message about stopping the boat. The Modoc at once began to lose way and, a moment later, the vibration from the engine room told the boys that the pumps had been started.
“Let’s go below and see if we can help,” suggested Bart, and the four chums went down in a hurry. They found men dragging lines of hose forward where little curls of smoke began coming from an open hatchway.
“Drown her out, men!” cried the captain. “It’ll be all day with us if the flames get loose in that dry freight!”
Several of the men, dragging the snaky lines of hose, dropped down into the hold. They called for water, and the captain signalled for it to be turned on. The flat hose bulged out like a snake after a full meal, and a splashing sound from below told that the quenching fluid was getting in its work.
“Can we do anything?” asked Fenn, as he saw Captain Wiggs taking off his coat and donning oil skins.
“Not now, I guess. You might stand by for orders though. There’s no telling into what this will develope.”
It was getting quite smoky below, and the hold, down into which the commander had disappeared, was pouring out a volume of black vapor.
“Tell ’em to send another line of hose!” came a voice from below, and Fenn hurried to the engineer’s room with the order.
Several men sprang at once to obey. The hose was unreeled from a rack on the partition, and run out to the hold. Then the engineer started another pump, that had been held in reserve.