CHAPTER XITHE HERO FRIEND
“Gracious!” cried Randy. “See! See! Flames!”
Both boys ran to the rear of the place. A puff of smoke had entered the open window of the last door. Then there came a tongue of flame—fierce, devouring—then more smoke.
Pep uttered a shrill cry—half moan, half sob. His vivid imagination depicted the splendid playhouse going up in flames. He was trembling all over as he approached the open sash. He tried to look out, but a great cloud of dense black smoke drove him back, choked and blinded.
“It’s a real blaze!” shouted Randy. He had stuck his head through a window farther from the rear. He saw that the garage was all ablaze, the flames leaping towards the rear wall of the playhouse.
In an instant Randy guessed that oil or gasoline stored in the shed had become ignited.
“Fire! Fire!” he yelled at the top of his voice, dashing toward the street. “Follow me,” he called to Pep. “There’s no good staying here. Send in an alarm!”
Pep paid no heed to the words. By the time Randy had reached the entrance lobby and was half-way down its length, his comrade had run to the lever operating the side exit doors. He gave this a turn. Then he dashed outside.
Pep headed for the rear of the playhouse to see how far the fire had progressed. Turning the corner of the building a great quantity of water struck him in the face.
It drove him back and he dodged out of range. In half a second, however, there came a drenching shower. Then it turned from him again, and Pep descried the cause of the flood.
Half-way down the vacant space between the garage and the playhouse, stood a boy. He held in his hand the nozzle of a large hose, connected with a water plug farther away.
The lad was shielding his eyes with one arm and bending over as smoke and cinders enveloped him. He staggered back as a sheet of flames swept over him. Resolutely, even defiantly, however, he maintained his position.
He would direct the hose at the flaming garage. Then he would sweep the stream around. Thiswas why its cascade had showered Pep. Then the boy would shoot the torrent up and down and across the wall of the playhouse. This was blistered with the heat, and smoking.
Some projecting timbers were ablaze. He extinguished these, turned the stream back of him and directed it towards the garage. There, however, the blaze was too fierce—had gained too strong a headway to subdue. In fact, the lad seemed more anxious to protect the playhouse than the sheds.
“Oh! will he make it? Why don’t somebody come? Fire! Fire!” screamed Pep frantically, and then from the rear of the buildings fronting on the Common their occupants began to pour. Randy must have acted quickly, Pep realized, for he heard clanging bells in the distance.
Suddenly the boy with the hose staggered as a dense cloud of smoke enveloped him. Pep saw him fall, the hose dropping from his hand. Pep ran to where he lay and dragged him out of range of the leaping flames. He darted at the hose, lifted it and began playing the water on the rear of the playhouse, now burning in half a dozen places.
“If they’d only hurry!” he gasped. “I can’t stand this!”
Pep was obliged to stand to one side as theend of the garage was now a mass of flames. The wooden wall of the playhouse would smoulder, then it would blaze up. All Pep could do was to play the stream of water against this.
A great uproar rang through the vacant space alongside the garage shed. Amid shouts and orders the groups crowding from the rear doors of the surrounding buildings drew back, as a dozen helmeted firemen came dragging a hose through one of the stores. Pep sprang out of the way as a great rush of water came shooting from a nozzle. It drenched him from head to foot and almost carried him off his feet. Then the stream was steadied and played upon the burning shed.
Pep continued his efforts against the playhouse wall. He felt a thrill of hope as the dousing extinguished the blazing timbers and they did not relight. For two seconds the big hose was played across the wall. This dashed out farther danger to the playhouse and the firemen began to fight the blaze in the garage shed.
“It’s safe—it won’t burn!” quavered Pep. “And that boy—he did it! You brave fellow!” he cried, running up to the strange lad.
The latter had by this time gotten to his feet. While he rubbed his eyes, supporting himself by leaning against the show building, he swayedto and fro. In his excitement and gratitude Pep put his arms around him and almost hugged him.
The strange boy gazed at Pep blinkingly. Then rubbing the cinders from his eyes he took in the scene about him. He uttered a glad cry.
“The theatre’s all right; isn’t it?” he asked. “That’s all I care for.”
“What?” stammered Pep, opening his eyes wide at this manifestation of interest in the Standard.
“Yes, you see I know the fellows who own it. They’re friends of mine—that is, I hope they are.”
“Oh, is that so?” observed Pep, wonderingly. “You mean Mr. Strapp.”
“Who’s he? No, I don’t know him. It’s Frank Durham whom I know, and Professor Barrington. Say, look at the fire, I reckon they’ll save the storage house yonder; but the garage and shed are gone. They’ve got it under control now. Heigho! There goes my lodging—my supper, too, if I don’t see Mr. Ridge, the man who runs the garage.”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked Pep.
“I’ve been working there. It wasn’t much of a job; but you see I was waiting for Frank Durham—”
The speaker shook himself as if to get thechill out of his limbs. He pulled off his coat and began wringing out the soaked sleeves.
“Br-r-r!” he shivered, as the coarse cloth grazed a seared and blistered hand, “that hurts.”
Pep caught hold of the lad’s arm, his face full of sympathy.
“See here,” he said, “you’re hurt and chilled. You’re a hero; do you know it? You’ve saved Our beautiful playhouse——”
“Who played that hose?” demanded a hoarse voice, and looking up the boys faced a tall fireman wearing a silver badge of office on his white rubber coat.
“This boy did,” Pep hastened to reply.
“Yes, sir,” explained the strange lad, “you see the hose is always attached to wash the mud off the machines. I sort of hang around here and have been sleeping in the office for two nights. I don’t know how the fire started; but when I came out some rags soaked with cylinder oil were ablaze. I did what I could.”
“What you did saved that theatre building,” announced the battalion chief. “If that frame end there had got blazing—good-bye to the whole block, maybe. You’d make a good fireman, son.”
“You come with me,” said Pep, grasping the arm of the lad firmly.
“Why, what for?” inquired the boy.
“To get dry clothes—to be made just as comfortable as can be—to give me and my friends a chance to show you what we think of the fellow who has saved our beautiful new playhouse!”