Then he hastened away to fetch up others, so that all efforts might be concentrated on that one section. The fight for the rest of the town must be made then and there. Already a heavy blow had been struck to beat back the fire; and if only it could be held to the other side, the valuable plants might yet be saved.
Soon men came rushing along. An engine turned a corner and stopped before a hydrant, with men jumping this way and that in the endeavor to get connections with the least possible waste of time.
The explosion must have terrified most people who heard it, since they could not but believe it meant the destruction of some mill. It is wonderful, however, how news is flashed along from mouth to mouth during such scenes of excitement as this; and, doubtless, when people learned that the shock came from a desperate effort to confine the fire to the side of the town where it had started, their hopes would take a new bound upward.
“Will it force its way across in spite of everything, do you think, Rob?” asked Tubby, solicitously, as he stood beside the patrol leader, and watched the working fire-fighters battling so manfully.
“I hope not,” he was told, in a reassuring tone. “You can see how they’re trying to soak the wall of that nearest factory so it can hold out against the heat when the test comes. Besides that they are getting more water on right along. Here comes another company, and from the way the people keep cheering them I reckon they must belong in another town, and have been rushed here by special train.”
It afterwards turned out that Rob had actually hit the truth when he made this guess. Word of the dreadful imperiling catastrophe that had come upon Wyoming must have been flashed to neighboring towns by telegraph, as well as an appeal for assistance. Such a call is never allowed to pass unheeded in American communities, and just as soon as they could get the right of way a special train with the engine and firefighters aboard had been dispatched, with the order to “burn the rails” in making speed.
There was need of every available man and machine. The wall of fire had by now arrived at the gap, and gave positive signs of being disposed to leap across in order to complete its work of destruction. Men fought madly to restrain it. Those who held the various lines of hose pushed forward until their faces were scorched by the heat, but in spite of all this they persisted, and would not be denied.
“They’re holding it there, mark you!” shrilled Ralph in the ear of Rob Blake, as all of them stood watching these exciting happenings, their hearts almost in their throats, so to speak, such was the weight of their anxiety.
Rob was encouraged. He began to believe that after all the devoted firemen were going to come out victors in their fierce battle with the element that had started in to ravage the whole town of Wyoming.
He bent most of his attention on the buildings close by, for if one of them suddenly burst into flames it would mean that the worst that could happen was about to commence.