“Good Lord, he's goin' to try the dynamite. Hold on, there, Mr. Halloran! You'll never make it; the fire's too close.”
“Get back there! What do you mean by talking back to me?” Halloran's eyes were blazing. “Get back or I'll throw you back Drop that hose, Cap'n. Don't say a word!”
“All right, Cap'n. I guess we can get the hose back with us. Heave, now!”
Halloran jerked it away from them, took the Captain by the shoulders and spun him around. “I'll give you three seconds to get to the gate. Now get! And none of your talk!”
They ran, without a word.
The fire had eaten its way almost to the widening of the peninsula, almost to the last point where the dynamite could be expected to stop it. A narrow strip could be blasted out, but once the flames had swept on into the main yards nothing could check them. The steamers were far enough away, Halloran thought, to be safe; and he had warned all the men back. They stood now at the gate, waiting. The watchmen and deckhands were there, and the twenty- or thirty amateur and the dozen professional fire-fighters. Crosman came hurrying over from the mill-plug and addressed himself to the Wauchung chief.
“Have your boys run the hose right down the minute you hear the second explosion.”
“There'll be only two?”
“Only two. I've got my hose ready to take down the other road. The rest of you boys be ready with your buckets, and when the Chief here gives the word you run for it, every one of you. Understand?” Then he hurried back to his station.
“Here he comes,” said a Wauchung fireman.