“No use, Lon!” he croaked, putting his mouth dose to his comrade’s ear. “We can’t make ’em hear. We’ve got to catch that pipe.”
Both knew well the peril they risked. Three months before had not a flying nozzle snapped Billy Bowen’s leg! But they must take chances. Remfry slunk along the right-hand board-pile; Penfield followed the left. Should one get his hands on the hose, the other was to spring to his help.
The dense smoke thinned, and they glimpsed the line, slatting like a maddened python. Three or four clutches at the elusive loops resulted only in their being flung down and dragged in the dirt.
Through those moments of exhausting struggle, of harrowing suspense, dread of the fire creeping ever nearer the oil, destruction menacing the entire city, Remfry’s brain was busy with the terrible thought that he and his boys were responsible for it all.
The clouds lifted. Remfry saw the coil whip toward Penfield. There came a thud. Lon was swept off his feet, and dashed against the board-pile. Dropping like a lump of clay, he lay motionless. Remfry thought his mate was killed. He faced the hose with sudden fury.
Just then it caught for an instant under the end of a board. His chance! Hurling himself upon it, he wound both arms about the swelling tube just as it got away again.
Twining arms and legs round the hose, he hitched slowly forward. The whole thing now was on him, him! Lon could not help any more. Inch by inch he crept along the squirming tube, hugging it bearishly. It flirted him from one side to the other, rolling him in the dirt. It humped itself like a bucking bronco. Once it tossed him against the boards, almost fracturing his ribs. In spite of all he did not let go; for he knew he could never get hold again.
A weak cry made him look back. Under the smoke he caught sight of Penfield, struggling to rise. He had only been stunned. A great weight fell from Remfry’s mind, and he clung with fresh strength.
“Take your time, Lon!” he shouted. “I’ll hold it down.”
Huge, black, formless, fiery-eyed, spitting forky flame, the conflagration overshadowed him, like a gigantic Chinese dragon, the spirit of ruin personified. Against its searing breath he crawled, now prone, now tossed aloft, battered, smoke-stifled, but creeping steadily on.