Before long, a dozen firemen, with a tall ladder on their shoulders, appeared from somewhere, and quickly raised it against the building. Three of them then mounted it, dragging up a pole with an enormous iron hook at the end. But there was no projection at the edge of the roof into which they could fix the hook.
"Stay where you are," shouted the foreman to them through his trumpet. Then to the assistant foreman he shouted:
"Send up your lightest man to cut a place."
The assistant foreman looked about him, seized on Monkey as the lightest man, and hastily ordered him up.
The next instant, Monkey was going up the ladder, axe in hand, passed the men who were holding the hook, and stepped upon the roof. While he stood there, we could see him plainly, a dark form against a lurid background, as with a few swift strokes he cut a hole in the roof, perhaps a foot from the edge.
The hook was lifted once more, and its point settled into the place thus prepared for it. The pole that formed the handle of the hook reached in a long slope nearly to the ground, and a heavy rope formed a continuation of it. At the order of the foreman, something like a hundred men seized this rope and stretched themselves out in line for a big pull. At the same time, some of the firemen near the building, seeing the first tongues of flame leap out of the window nearest to the ladder,—for the fire had somehow got into this wooden building also,—hastily pulled down the ladder, leaving Monkey standing on the roof, with no apparent means of escape.
A visible shudder ran through the crowd, followed by shouts of "Raise the ladder again!"
The ladder was seized by many hands, but in a minute more it was evident that it would be useless to raise it, for the flames were pouring out of every window, and nobody could have passed up or down it alive.
"Stand from under!" shouted Monkey, and threw his axe to the ground.
Then, getting cautiously over the edge, he seized the hook with both hands, threw his feet over it, thus swinging his body beneath it, and came down the pole and the rope hand over hand, like his agile namesake, amid the thundering plaudits of the multitude.