“Yes’m, in that direction.”
“Come on,” she said, seizing Florence by the arm; “the fire’s down toward Tyler street. I think we ought to try to get to the cottage if we can. What could that child and the old Frenchman do if the fire reached their cottage? He’d burn rather than leave his books and the child wouldn’t leave him; besides there are the books that belong to other people and that I’m partly responsible for. C’m’on.”
For fifteen minutes they struggled down a street that was thronged with excited people.
“One wouldn’t believe that there could be such a crowd on the streets at this hour of the night,” panted Florence, as she elbowed her way forward. “Lucile, you hang to my waist. We must not be separated.”
They came to a dead stop at last. At the end of the river bridge a rope had been thrown across the street. At paces of ten feet this rope was guarded by policemen. None could pass save the firemen.
The fire was across the river but sent forth a red glare that was startling. By dint of ten minutes of crawling Florence succeeded in securing for them a position against the rope.
A large fire in a city at night is a grand and terrible spectacle. This fire was no exception. Indeed, it was destined to become the worst fire the city had experienced in more than forty years.
Starting in some low, ancient structures that lay along the river, it soon climbed to a series of brick buildings occupied by garment makers. The flames, like red dragons’ tongues, darted in and out of windows. With a great burst they leaped through a tar-covered roof to mount hundreds of feet in air. Burning fragments, all ablaze, leaped to soar away in the hot currents of air.
The firemen, all but powerless, fought bravely. Here a fire tower reared itself to dizzy heights in air. Here and there fire hose, like a thousand entwined serpents, writhed and twisted. Here a whole battery of fire engines smoked and there two powerful gasoline driven engines kept up a constant heavy throbbing. Roofs and walls crumbled, water tanks tottered and fell, steel pillars writhed and twisted in the intense heat, chimneys came crashing in heaps.
The fire had all but consumed the row of four-story buildings. Then with a fresh dash of air from the lake it burst forth in earnest, a real and terrible conflagration.