Tom Remfry hesitated. Fourth of July night though it was, he could not forego his weekly battle with Lon Penfield, his fellow fireman and ancient checker foe. So he compromised. “Run along, boys. I’ll come after just one game. Don’t point those rockets toward the city.”
Whooping, the boys made off. Tom and Lon sat down to the board, undisturbed by the noise outside. This game was unusually important, for Lon’s victory the Saturday before had tied them with seventeen apiece.
While they whittled down each other’s forces, Henry Marcot, watchman in Bustin’s lumber-yard, was uneasily watching three boys with firecrackers just outside the fence. So engrossed was Henry with the foe in front that he did not observe a flaming rocket-stick which, after soaring far and high, dropped quietly upon a hard-pine board-pile behind him. Startled by a sudden crackling, he looked back to see the whole pile ablaze.
When the rocket fell, Remfry’s four kings were beleaguering Penfield’s remaining three in the latter’s dodge-corner. Marcot pulled the yard alarm just as an incautious onslaught cost the besieger two pieces to his enemy’s one, and left the game a draw.
Clang! Clang!
Over went the board and up leaped both call-men. Out they darted, Remfry snapping his spring-lock, and ran at top speed for the house of Hose 5. The cart was rattling into the street when they jumped abroad.
“Where’s the fire?” halloed Remfry to Louville Craig, his elbow neighbor on the swaying wagon.
“Bustin’s lumber-yard!” Craig shouted. “They say a rocket from Steel Bridge started it.”
Remfry caught his breath as if doused with cold water. Steel Bridge! One of his boys’ rockets! His heart went down like lead. Oh, why had he not gone with them and given up his game! But it was too late now. That very thing had been the nightmare of the fire department ever since he joined it—a blaze in the worst place and under the worst conditions.
The city stood west of the river on three terraces. The first contained lumber-yards, coal-sheds and mills; the second, thirty feet higher, held the railroad-tracks and business section; while the third, thirty feet higher still, was covered with residences. Unless the flames were checked, the east wind would drive them against an oil-tank right above the yard on the edge of the second terrace. That once afire, the whole city might be wiped out.