"Look!" he cried. "It's the front end of the car that's on fire. If we climbed through the side door we'd have a chance to——"
He never finished the sentence, for the boys had caught the idea and were racing headlong for the burning car. Mr. Bradley, meeting them half way, literally had to drag them back.
"Don't be idiots!" he shouted to them. "Do you want to get burned up?"
"Let go, Dad!" gasped Chet, struggling to free himself. "Billie's trunk!"
"Billie's trunk will have to take its chance," Mr. Bradley yelled back at him. Then he added in a changed voice that made the boys stop struggling for a moment and follow the direction of his gaze. "Here come the fire engines. Maybe we'll save that trunk after all."
With a yell the boys dashed off down the platform to meet the engines, whether with a vague idea of helping the horses pull or just on general principles, no one will ever know.
The fire department was a country one, and there was not enough force of water; in fact, there seemed not to be enough of anything.
They did at last succeed in putting out the fire, however, while the girls stood by in an agony of suspense, and finally some of the train hands were allowed to climb into the sodden train and find what luggage, if any, could be saved.
Wildly hoping that their own particular little trunk with its precious contents would be among the saved, the girls and boys would have followed, but a guard politely but firmly held them back.
"Claim your baggage at the next town, please," he said, and, his hard heart softened perhaps by the sight of Billie's anxious face, added by way of explanation: "All the baggage will be sent to the next town to be claimed in the morning."