"Just the stuff," recommended Romper Ryan, who had been inspecting the apparatus, "handy and compact. Doesn't weigh more than a hundred pounds. Two of us could handle it in fine shape. We certainly would like to have it."
"All right," acquiesced Mr. Clifford, "it's yours."
The good-natured manufacturer also gave the boys a set of old fire pails that needed fresh coats of paint, and several lengths of old but serviceable fire hose, not to mention a number of rusty fire hatchets, crowbars and pike poles.
"How about ladders?" said Mr. Clifford as the boys were about to depart.
"Gee, we never thought of 'em," said Bruce, surprised at such an omission. Then as he considered the capacity of "Old Nanc," he continued: "But if we had them we wouldn't know how to carry them; we—you see, we can't afford to overload the auto or she will never be able to get started for a fire."
"Ho, ho, that's right. She'd be a regular tortoise," said Mr. Clifford. "But why don't you make a couple of scaling ladders? I'll have the top hooks forged for you if you'll build the ladders. They'll be light and serviceable and you can work up a mighty spectacular drill with them."
"Great, we'll do it," said Bruce. Then he added, "perhaps we will have a real fire department after all."
"Old Nanc" spent the busiest day of her career gathering up the loads of extinguishers, hose and other equipment before she was laid up for alteration, and the Scouts for many days thereafter found that their spare time was well taken up with their work at headquarters.
From the hour that the Woodbridge Academy closed until ten o'clock in the evening they toiled like beavers. Bruce, always a capable manager, divided the patrols into working squads and assigned them to the various tasks to be accomplished. Those who were handy with carpentering tools he set to work making a new fire patrol body for the automobile. Those who excelled at the forges he assigned to the task of making brackets and metal clamps with which to fasten the extinguishers onto the motorcycles. Some were appointed ladder makers, others were painters, and still others were buffers and polishers, who shined up the tarnished sides of the tanks and took the rust off the axes and pike heads. And when they all became active the interior of headquarters was a veritable beehive for busyness.
The boys did not devote all their time to building work, however, for they realized that to win honors at the firemen's tournament, in which they meant to compete, they would have to be well drilled in every branch of fire fighting. Consequently every evening, just before dusk, the entire troop assembled in the field back of headquarters.