The Third Alarm: A Story of the New York Fire Department

by James L. Ford

The neighborhood was inhabited chiefly by foreigners, and Bruce could hear these people talking to one another in half a dozen strange tongues, as they leaned out of windows or crowded about the engines as closely as the police would allow them. And among this crowd of chattering, excited aliens, Bruce noticed one man of striking appearance, who seemed totally different from those about him, and who stood on the steps of a tenement house and watched the fire with amusement and interest reflected on his countenance.

In marked contrast to the other denizens of the street, this man was well dressed and carried with him an unmistakable air of prosperity. He was tall and dark, and his heavy black beard was cropped close to his face. As he stood on the top step the boy could see his profile, distinctly. It was clear cut, the nose slightly aquiline and the chin and mouth firm and square. He wondered idly what this well-dressed man could be doing in that part of the city, and, while he was still wondering, the subject of his thoughts came down the steps and walked quickly away, for by this time the fire was out, the men were reeling up the hose, and the members of the truck company were returning their apparatus to the truck and preparing to go home.

At the same time the uniformed employees of the insurance patrol placed themselves in the doorways of the factory and Chief Trask came over to where Bruce was sitting with his horses and bade him start for home. As they drove slowly in the direction of the quarters they passed the tall man with the close cropped black beard. He eyed them sharply, as they went by, and as he turned his face, Bruce noticed what he had not observed before, namely, a long scar which ran obliquely across his chin.

Just at this moment he heard one of the men on the truck behind him say to his fellow: “There’s that tall, ugly looking chap that used to come round to the quarters every once and a while, I haven’t seen him for six months now, and I don’t know that I want to see him again, for I never liked his looks.” Bruce eagerly turned his head for a final glimpse of the dark stranger, but he had disappeared.

“Never mind,” he said to himself, “that face is fixed in my mind and I’ll never forget it. One of these days I’ll find out who that man is, and what he had to do with my father.”

That afternoon he sat in his accustomed corner in the back room of the quarters, thinking over his day’s experience. He was very quiet and did not join in the conversation that was going on around him. He wanted to tell his friend, Weyman, about the tall stranger with the scar on his chin, and he would have done so, had it not been that he remembered Laura’s emphatic order not to allow any one but herself to share his secret.

For fully half an hour he thought the matter over, and then determined, reluctantly it must be owned, not to say anything about it to Weyman, until he had obtained the young girl’s permission.

And it was just at this stage of his investigations that he made his first serious blunder. If he had gone at once to his friend and told him about the man whom he had seen down among the Poles and Russians and Germans, in the tenement house quarter of the town, it would have made a great difference in his life. But he allowed himself to be influenced by a pretty, imperious, spoiled little girl, instead of by a quick-witted, sensible and devoted friend, with results which will be described in future chapters of this story.

Chapter XII.

Charley Weyman was anxious to learn how his boy friend had been received and entertained in the Van Kuren mansion, and he listened attentively while Bruce described his visit, told him how friendly Laura and Harry had been, and with what courtesy he had been welcomed by their father and their aunt, but somehow he neglected to mention his long conversation with Laura in the summer-house, nor did he refer to the Dexter mansion at all. The young girl’s words still rang in his ears, and it was a pleasant thought to him that he had a secret to share with her, a secret which none of his other friends need know about. The little scrawl which she had placed in his hand at parting he kept in the innermost compartment of his pocket-book, and many a time during the day while engaged at his work he would take the little crumpled bit of paper out or its hiding place, read it carefully through and then return it, carefully folded up.