"Her baby. She says it is in the house!" replied the boy, whose face was white with the horror of it all.
"What?" cried Jack; "did she forget her own baby, then?"
"She thought her husband had it. He's a sick man too. See, that's him they are holding back there. He wants to go in for the baby, and they won't let him. Oh! Jack, I'd like to do it, but I'm afraid of fire. I just dassent!" sobbed the boy.
Jack waited to hear no more. His blood seemed to be on fire, and his teeth came together with a click.
Another moment and he was in the group, eagerly plying the almost distracted mother with questions as to which room her baby had been in. Fortunately Jack had once known a boy living in the old Bradley mansion; so that the interior of the house was not strange to him.
"Our bedroom—it is the corner one where the tower stands. The one that has the alcove!" the lady managed to cry, as she caught his arm, and looked, oh, so pleadingly, in his boyish, determined face.
After that Jack would have risked anything in the attempt to save that innocent little one. He rushed off without saying a word. Several put out a hand to stop him, under the belief that it was useless, since that portion of the building seemed to be a mass of flames by now. But Jack dodged them just as he did when running with the ball on the football field.
When he dashed into the house, disappearing in the volume of smoke that poured from the open doorway, a groan went up from the great crowd; for they doubted as to whether he would ever be seen alive again.