“What good will that do?” cried his friend, mopping his brow. “There’s the wire screen behind it. You can’t bust that with your fist.”
“Break the big window, then!”
“No! Smash the lock of the door.”
But they had no tools with which to do this. Had there been a loose paving block in the street the urgent man would surely have burst in the big plate glass. Just then a man with a helmet on his head and an axe in his hand rushed around the corner—the first fireman on the scene.
“Where is it, boy?” he demanded of Billy Long. “You rang in the alarm, didn’t you?”
“Here it is, Ned!” yelled one of the men in front of the grocery store. “You’ve got to break down this door to git to it.”
“You got to break the window—that’s quickest!” declared the insistent man.
The fireman ran to the door. He poised his axe for a blow as the others stood back. But suddenly Laura Belding halted the whole proceedings.
“Wait! wait a moment!” she cried, darting to the side of the window.
The fireman looked over his shoulder at her. The girl, with nimble fingers, released the awning ropes. In half a minute the heavy awning dropped over the walk and shut out the hot rays of the sun. The cinder of bread stopped smoking. The fire was out!