But Sure Pop caught her arm as she started away. "Wait, she'll find him."
Sure enough, before long a young woman came running wildly from house to house calling out, "Karlchen! My little Karlchen! Where are you?"
The little fellow popped his head out from under Betty's cloak with a squeal of delight. "Mama!" he cried in his soft baby voice. "Mama!"—just that one happy word, over and over, as his mother pressed him to her breast.
The look on her face was thanks enough for Betty. Somehow the fire did not seem so dreadful to her after that.
"How'd it start?" Bob asked a fireman who was binding up a split in the bulging canvas hose.
"Fellow dropped a lighted match in a coat closet—house next to the church," puffed the fireman, who was breathing as if he had run a mile. He gave the hose a parting kick and hurried to join his comrades down the street, where the flames were fiercest.
"The same old story," said Sure Pop, soberly. "Hold on! What's that?"
Bob and Betty looked up at the little old-fashioned window in the cottage across the street. A small black-and-tan dog was standing on his hind legs inside the room, pawing and scratching at the window pane.
Sure Pop put two fingers to his lips and gave a piercing whistle. The dog answered him, barking wildly and running back into the smoke-filled room, then to the window again, as if trying to call their attention to something or somebody in the room with him.
"There's somebody in there!" cried Bob. "Come on, Sure Pop—wait here for us, Betty!"