As the boys went out through the front gate another engine dashed up at full speed, dropping lighted cinders on its way.
"Hurray!" Bill said; "this is a steamer. I expect they will do now."
Then the boys made their way round again to the back, and by means of the pieces of timber established themselves on the wall, where they were soon joined by a number of others, and watched the struggle with the flames.
In half an hour six engines were on the spot; but even this force had no visible effect upon the flames in that portion of the building in which they had taken possession, and the firemen turned the whole of their efforts to prevent it from spreading.
The party wall dividing it from the main building was a very strong one; but so hot had it become that the floor boards touching it were over and over again in flames.
A score of men with saws and axes cut away the flooring adjoining the doors on the first and second stories. The planing-room was fortunately not boarded. While a portion of the fire brigade worked unceasingly in preventing the spread of the flames in this direction, the rest turned their attention to the great wood piles, which were repeatedly ignited by the fragments of burning wood.
Presently the roof fell in, and the flames shot up high into the air, but grand as the sight was, the boys did not wait any longer looking on. Their faces smarted severely from the heat to which they had been exposed; their hands had been a good deal burned by the shavings; their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes were singed, and the eyeballs ached with the glare.
"I will run home now, Bill; mother will likely enough hear of the fire, and as we said we should be back soon after eight she will be getting anxious."
"I will go and tell her it's all right; you stop and see the end of it here."
But this George would not hear of.