Mr. Miller crawled through a second-story window above the kitchen roof, and hung a coverlet, hastily jerked from a bed and soaked with water, over the gable where the heat seemed worst. A line of men was formed from the pump and from the kitchen sink, up the back stairs, and passed buckets of water out to him. These he emptied over the coverlet, and here and there over the shingles.
Below, inside, were Maggie and Mrs. Miller, the one naturally as strong as any man, the other nerved, by the crisis, to unusual strength, standing at the faucets of the sink and filling pails, pitchers, wash pans, anything that might serve to supply the line of men.
Outside, with the fire baking him, behind, and the spray from the nozzle drenching him, in front, Ned valiantly plied his stream. On a sudden it died away to a mere trickle. The hose, under the increased pressure put on by the water-works, had burst.
Ned dropped the nozzle. At the same instant a chorus of shouts arose, and a score of hands were upstretched, pointing at a spot where, eight feet above the kitchen roof, under the exposed gable-peak of the main portion of the house a flicker of flame was licking along.
Mr. Miller, bareheaded, his eyebrows and hair singed by the waves of heat, from his position upon the sloping roof of the kitchen, heard the cries of warning, and saw the blaze which had passed his defenses, and was in his rear. But in vain he dashed water at it. Protected as it was by the overhanging eaves, and occupying a place awkward for him to reach, it resisted all his efforts.
“Climb up with a rope!” yelled some voices.
“Get a ladder! A ladder’s the thing!” yelled others.
But nobody seemed able to find rope or ladder, and the flame continued to grow.
Ned shot through the kitchen and up the front stairs. He bolted into his room—it was hot as a furnace, poor little room!—and snatching his ball of trot-line from the drawer where it had lain nearly a year, bolted out again. He scrambled through the open window of Mr. and Mrs. Miller’s bedchamber, and running along the roof of the front porch shinned up the water-spout and was upon the house-top. He scaled the steep slant, and now, balanced astride the peak, shuffled toward the farther end. The crowd saw him, and cheered.