“It’s the fire department from Sundale! See! Hurrah! Hurrah!” shouted Hal, swinging his hat.
“Hurrah!” chimed in Ned, and all the others.
Sundale was the neighboring village—a rival save in time of need like this—two miles northward. Down the street, nearer and nearer, welcomed by cheer after cheer, came the two carts, their plunging horses, foam-flecked by their long run, exerting their last energy in one final spurt; down, down, “clang! clang! clang!” straight through the living lane and across the tracks. Hurrah!
“Bully for Sundale!” cried Ned.
“You bet!” agreed Hal; and none disputed.
“I hope they’ll do some good,” he added. “But, oh, look at it now, will you!”
The sight was superb, but it was frightful. Even during the short time that the boys had been on the car the fire had increased shockingly. It did not seem to jump from the top of one pile to another, but it seemed to devour entire piles at a gulp. Piles fifty, seventy, ninety feet high disappeared in a twinkling. Their boards curled and withered like leaves, as the fury of the fiery blast sucked them in.
“What’s the use of standing off and squirting at it!” grumbled Ned. “They aren’t stopping it!”
“And they can’t get close enough to reach it—and if they could the water would turn to steam before it struck!” said Hal. “I—I guess I ought to go home, Ned.”
He was almost crying, and his voice ended in a despairing little wail. Ned, too, felt a queer thrill of helplessness; but he answered, stoutly: