“Clang! Clang! Clang!” The approach of succor faintly fell on Ned’s ears. The hose-carts, at last!
“The hose-carts! They’re coming now!” he shouted to his father.
“The hose-carts! There come the hose-carts!” murmured the crowd in swiftly increasing tones.
“Hurrah!” cheered Ned, scrambling back over the roof to the porch.
“Thank God!” sighed Mr. Miller; and then he could not refrain from adding, as he had a right to do, the mild criticism: “And it’s about time they came, too.”
Indeed it was. Down the dark street, shaded by the trees, appeared four spots of light. “Clang! Clang! Clang!” louder sounded the gongs—never a more welcome sound. With tramp of feet and hoarse shouts up raced the rival carts of the Pole Star and Defiance companies, drawn by their volunteers, and unreeling their hose as they came.
With a crash and a shower of sparks the loft of the barn fell in, but there still was plenty of work for the two floods that presently gushed from the fire nozzles. Mr. Miller hastily ducked through the window, and above his head spattered a heavy stream before which the impudent blaze beneath the main gable was blotted from existence. A driving deluge swept against the kitchen, and all those little flames that had been taxing the bucket brigade vanished in a twinkling.
The house was saved; but seldom house had more narrow escape!
Ned, climbing in again from the porch, had proceeded to do something that long had been on his mind. His loaded shotgun cartridges! Supposing the house should burn and they should explode and injure people! He had a vague notion that he would be liable to arrest for having kept powder around. Besides, he did not want anybody to be hurt. So he groped his way into the attic, and piling the shells in his arms carried them down and laid them under the front steps. Then he breathed easier.