“Just in time!” cried the first fireman. “And luckily for us, the wind is blowing the other way—off the building instead of on to it.”
Making their way quickly across to the parting wall, having pulled the ladder up behind them, they now placed it against the wall and all four scaled to the roof of the Allen store.
One of the firemen grabbed a bag of the fire-powder from Frank’s arm, and both of them rushed toward the elevator shaft, where blazes were breaking through the wooden door. Laying the powder on the roof, they again dragged the ladder up from the wall, and, using it as a battering ram, they very quickly knocked the burning door inward.
Out leaped a perfect rush of flames, their long red hungry tongues leaping and crackling in fiendish glee as the opening gave a first-class draft for the fire below in the shaft.
Crack! The first bag of fire-powder was hurled into the shaft, spilling downward. Crack, went another. Then another, and one more, in quick succession, each carefully aimed through the center of the opening.
By this time the firemen with the hose were calling for the ladder, which was passed down to them by the two firemen on the roof while Frank and Lanky continued hurling the powder at the opening until all six bags were gone.
Frank recalled that the salesman of the powder had stated that it was merely a deterrent of fire, and would not extinguish a large blaze—only hold it in check for a few moments.
So it did in this case. The flames of a sudden grew smaller, and Frank realized that their time to get water down the shaft had arrived.
“Water!” went the cry from one of the firemen on the roof, as he signaled to the street below, where a burly fellow stood at the water plug with hand on wrench ready to give them the water.
Instantly the hose swelled and twisted and turned, writhing to get away from them, but six men, including Frank and Lanky, were at the nozzle end of the hose, keeping it to its duty.