They crowded their way back through the throng which was hourly growing denser. It was distressing to catch the fragments of conversation that came to them as they fought their way back. Tens of thousands of people were being robbed of their means of making a living. Each fresh blaze took the bread from the mouths of hundreds of children.
“T’wasn’t much of a job I had,” muttered an Irish mother with a shawl over her head, “but it was bread! Bread!” “Every paper, every record of my business for the past ten years, was in my files and the office is doomed,” roared a red-faced business man. “It’s doomed! And they won’t let me through.”
“There’s not one of them all that needs to get through more badly than I,” said Lucile, with a lump in her throat. “Surely there must be a way.”
Working their way back, the two girls hurried four blocks along Wells street, which ran parallel to the river, then turned on Madison to fight their way toward a second bridge.
“Perhaps it is open,” Lucile told Florence.
Her hopes were short-lived. Again they faced a rope and a line of determined-faced policemen.
“It just must be done!” said Lucile, setting her teeth hard as they again backed away.
An alley offered freer passage than the street. They had passed down this but a short way when they came upon a ladder truck which had been backed in as a reserve. On it hung the long rubber coats and heavy black hats of the firemen.
Instinctively Lucile’s hand went out for a coat. She glanced to right and left. She saw no one. The next instant she had donned that coat and was drawing a hat down solidly over her hair.
“I know it’s an awful thing to do,” she whispered, “but I am doing it for them, not for myself. You may come or stay. It’s really my battle. I’ve got to see it through to the end. You always advised against going further but I ventured. Now it’s do or die.”