Hardly had the words left his lips before there came booming out on the night air a sound that thrilled them all to the heart. Clear and loud, with a note of clamorous terror, there came winging toward them the clang of the fire alarm! Stroke after stroke struck with a heavy hammer on the tire of an old locomotive wheel—that was the only alarm Hampton boasted. The wheel hung outside the fire house of the Vigilant Engine Company Number One. There was no Number Two.
“Gee whiz, fellows! The fire alarm!” cried Tubby, pulling up short in the road.
They stood breathlessly listening, while out on the dusk the clamorous notes of the steel tocsin went clanging and jangling. A thrilling, soul-stirring cry at any time, it was doubly so to these lads, members of a body enlisted in the cause of helping those who needed aid.
They were standing on the main street at a point where the stores and business houses had given place to residences surrounded by lawns and trees. Out of the houses there came rushing men and women and children, all in high excitement.
“Fire,” cried some of the men.
“Where?” came back in a dozen voices.
But nobody knew accurately. Suddenly a man, hatless and coatless, came sprinting up the street.
“It’s the ’cademy!” he was yelling, “the ’cademy’s on fire!”
“The Academy!” gasped Rob, aghast at the thought that the private school which most of the boys enrolled as Scouts attended was in flames.
“It’s up to us to do something and do it quick!” he cried the next instant. “Merritt, run as quick as you can to Andy’s house. Tell him to sound the Assembly. There’s lots of work for the Eagles to-night.”