“Sure thing, Boss an’ here she comes a rushin’ along like an express train—no hosses though, these days which knocks a whole lot o’ the picture silly. On your way, John Jacob, I’m with you!”
They ran like deer, side by side. Others were streaming ahead, everybody displaying the utmost zeal to get to the fire before the conflagration was smothered by the streams of water turned on it.
Perk was in his glory—this sort of thing appealed to his nature as a pond would to a flock of thirsty ducks. Only for his lack of wind he might have indulged in a few cowboy whoops as he tore up one street and down another, touching elbows with his pard and eagerly straining his eyes in the hope of presently detecting a gust of smoke that would proclaim their arrival at the scene of operations.
“Thar she blows!” Perk suddenly gasped, “see that black smudge blowin’ in from a side street ol’ hoss? Jest one more burst an’ we’ll be Johnny on the spot! Wow! ain’t this glorious sport though?”
Jack made no answer, since there was nothing to say and he needed all his breath to keep going, not yet having caught his second wind.
Already a large crowd had gathered and was milling this way and that, trying in every way possible to catch a better view of the house that was the object of all these activities. Several engines had arrived and were making a great noise as they began to throw streams of water on the imperiled building as well as its near neighbors that would soon be in danger should the fire get a better start.
“Whee! smoke aplenty but so far I don’t lamp any fire,” Perk was saying in disjointed fragments as he and Jack stopped running and commenced to make their way through gaps in the moving crowds.
“A four-story frame building,” observed Jack as though that fact gripped his attention first of all, “and looks like it might be a tenement in the bargain.”
“I kinder guess you’re ’bout right there, partner.” Perk chimed in. “See the women and kids huddled up over yonder, some o’ ’em holdin’ bundles o’ stuff they’ve grabbed up when they hurried to get out! Ain’t that too bad, though—the poor things, to git burned out o’ their homes.”
It was a picture well calculated to wring the heart of a softy like Perk. Apparently all of the tenants had managed to get clear of the smoke-filled halls for the police officers standing guard at the exit were preventing any of the wildly excited women from rushing back into the building, doubtless with the intention of saving some beloved article which had a value in their eyes far in excess of its intrinsic one. Although they fought desperately to push past, the stern guardians of the law stood between and held them back, as if acting under the belief that such an act would be sheer suicide with all that dense smoke filling the halls and stairways.