"Huh! How—could—I—when—it's—fast—on—the—cistern?"
That argument was, of course, unanswerable. Cole Bishop was a lad quite fond of mechanics, and was usually engaged in making some new kind of machinery. His force pump was his latest effort, and he was quite proud of it.
"Say! I should think it was burning!" suddenly exclaimed Bert, as he and his chums turned a corner of the street and came in full view of the blazing barn. The structure seemed enveloped in flames, great tongues of fire leaping high in the air, and a black pall of smoke hovering like an immense cloud above it. "They can't save that!"
"Guess not!" added Vincent. "What good are buckets in a blaze like that? You can't get near enough to throw the water on."
"Wish—I—had—my—force—pump," panted Cole.
By this time the boys had joined the crowd that was already at the scene of the fire. The heat could be felt some distance away.
"Come on, everybody with buckets!" cried Constable Stickler, who sometimes assumed charge of the bucket brigade. "Form a line from the horse trough to the barn. Pass the full buckets up one side and the empty ones down the other. Let the boys pass the empty buckets an' the men the full ones."
"Let's form two lines for full buckets," proposed another man.
"We'll need three," put in a third individual.
"Who's runnin' this here fire, I'd like to know?" inquired the constable indignantly. "Git to work now."