“Oh, never mind that,” yelled Trevor. “Hurry up! Think of poor old Muggins!”
“By Jove!” muttered Dick. “I’d forgotten him!” And he raced after. As they left the grounds the bell in Academy Building began to ring the alarm, while from the village other bells had already begun their note of warning. The fire was hidden from their view now, but a rosy glare in the sky above the trees and intervening buildings told them that it still raged. Opposite the post-office they overtook a group of men. “Know where it is?” asked Trevor. But they didn’t, and the two boys sped on, soon leaving them behind. But when they turned to pass the Town Hall Trevor gave a cry of joy:
“It isn’t the stables! It isn’t the stables, Dick!” And he was right; the fire was beyond them and more to the left. “By Jove,” he went on, “I believe it’s the church after all, or else—— What’s beyond that?”
“Beyond the church?” panted Dick. “Why, I don’t know; nothing except Coolidge’s, I guess. Do you suppose it’s that?”
“Must be,” answered Trevor. And then they turned aside as the volunteer fire department, with a rabble of curious men and boys following, rattled by. And now they could see plainly the squat tower of the Episcopal Church standing out boldly against the yellow glare.
“It is Coolidge’s!” cried Dick and Trevor in a breath, and ran yet faster. When they reached the great, square boarding-house they found it surrounded by a crowd of persons, many of them Hillton boys who lived in the village. The frame building was burning merrily, and the flames had advanced to such a stage that it appeared doubtful if the firemen could do much. But two lines of hose were stretched and the pumps were manned, and the volunteer department attacked the enemy valiantly. The entire right corner of the house was ablaze from cellar to mansard roof, the flames having gained undisputed sway of the three big rooms there. The hall, as the boys could see from their position near the front gate, was black with smoke which poured out the open doorway in stifling volumes. Two men suddenly emerged from it, staggering under the weight of a long couch which they released to ready helpers in the yard. But when they started again for the doorway they were stopped by a man whom the two boys recognized as the town marshal.
“Can’t let you go in again, Mr. Coolidge,” they heard him say. “Too risky.” And he was deaf to the expostulations of the salvagers. As the firemen took the first hose into the house the flames for a moment lighted up the hall, throwing the narrow staircase into relief. The marshal pointed, and the two men apparently recognized the force of his objections, for they turned back and hurriedly set about getting the goods with which the yard was strewn into places of safety.
“I wonder how they got Taylor out with his sprained knee,” said Dick to Trevor.
“Carried him, I fancy. I wonder where he is.” One of the lads who had roomed in the doomed building, and who was watching the conflagration with sentiments divided between regret for his lost chattels and joy in the brilliant spectacle, caught Trevor’s eye. “I say, Simpson,” he called, “what did they do with Taylor?” But Simpson shook his head doubtfully.
“I don’t know; guess they took him across to Cupples’s. I didn’t see him at all.” A terrible fear gripped Dick’s heart. It showed in his face, for Trevor gasped and looked about at a loss.