Chapter XXIII: Inside the Lines

"Come on," Lucile said, pulling at Florence's arm. "We've got to get there. It must be done. For everything that must be done there is always a way."

They crowded their way back through the throng which was hourly growing denser. It was distressing to catch the fragments of conversation that came to them as they fought their way back. Tens of thousands of people were being robbed of their means of making a living. Each fresh blaze took the bread from the mouths of hundreds of children.

"T'wasn't much of a job I had," muttered an Irish mother with a shawl over her head, "but it was bread! Bread!" "Every paper, every record of my business for the past ten years, was in my files and the office is doomed," roared a red-faced business man. "It's doomed! And they won't let me through."

"There's not one of them all that needs to get through more badly than I," said Lucile, with a lump in her throat. "Surely there must be a way."

Working their way back, the two girls hurried four blocks along Wells street, which ran parallel to the river, then turned on Madison to fight their way toward a second bridge.

"Perhaps it is open," Lucile told Florence.

Her hopes were short-lived. Again they faced a rope and a line of determined-faced policemen.

"It just must be done!" said Lucile, setting her teeth hard as they again backed away.

An alley offered freer passage than the street. They had passed down this but a short way when they came upon a ladder truck which had been backed in as a reserve. On it hung the long rubber coats and heavy black hats of the firemen.

Instinctively Lucile's hand went out for a coat. She glanced to right and left. She saw no one. The next instant she had donned that coat and was drawing a hat down solidly over her hair.

"I know it's an awful thing to do," she whispered, "but I am doing it for them, not for myself. You may come or stay. It's really my battle. I've got to see it through to the end. You always advised against going further but I ventured. Now it's do or die."

Florence's answer was to put out a hand and to grasp a fireman's coat. The next moment, in this new disguise, they were away.

Had the girls happened to look back just before leaving the alley they might have surprised a stoop-shouldered, studious-looking man in the act of doing exactly as they had done, robing himself in fireman's garb.

Dressed as they now were, they found the passing of the line a simple matter. Scores of fire companies and hundreds of firemen from all parts of the city had been called upon in this extreme emergency. There was much confusion. That two firemen should be passing forward to join their companies did not seem unusual. The coats and hats formed a complete disguise.

The crossing of the bridge was accomplished on the run. They reached the other side in the nick of time, for just as they leaped upon the approach the great cantilevers began to rise. A huge freighter which had been disgorging its cargo into one of the basements that line the river had been endangered by the fire. Puffing and snarling, adding its bit of smoke to the dense, lampblack cloud which hung over the city, a tug was working the freighter to a place of safety.

"We'll have to stay inside, now we're here," panted Lucile. "There's a line formed along the other approach. Here's a stair leading down to the railway tracks. We can follow the tracks for a block, then turn west again. There'll be no line there; it's too close to the fire."

"Might be dangerous," Florence hung back.

"Can't help it. It's our chance." Lucile was halfway down the stair. Florence followed and the next moment they were racing along a wall beside the railway track.

A switch engine racing down the track with a line of box cars, one ablaze, forced them to flatten themselves against the wall. There was someone following them, the studious boy in a fireman's uniform. He barely escaped being run down by the engine, but when it had passed and they resumed their course, he followed them. Darting from niche to niche, from shadow to shadow, he kept some distance behind them.

"Up here," panted Lucile, racing upstairs.

The heat was increasing. The climbing of those stairs seemed to double its intensity. Cinders were falling all about them.

"The wind has shifted," Florence breathed. "It--it's going to be hard."

Lucile did not reply. Her throat was parched. Her face felt as if it were on fire. The heavy coat and hat were insufferable yet she dared not cast them away.

So they struggled on. And their shadow, like all true shadows, followed.

"Look! Oh, look!" cried Florence, reeling in her tracks.

A sudden gust of wind had sent the fire swooping against the side of a magnificent building of concrete and steel. Towering aloft sixteen stories, it covered a full city block.

"It's going," cried Lucile as she heard the awful crash of glass and saw flames bursting from the windows as if from the open hearth furnace of a foundry.

It was true. The magnificent mahogany desks from which great, high-salaried executives sent out orders to thousands of weary tailors, made quite as good kindling that night as did some poor widow's washboard, and they were given quite as much consideration by that bad master, fire.

"Hurry!" Lucile's voice was hoarse with emotion. "We must get behind it, out of the path of the wind, or we will be burned to a cinder." Catching the full force of her meaning, Florence seized Lucile's hand and together they rushed forward.

Burning cinders rained about them, a half-burned board came swooping down to fall in their very path. Twice Lucile stumbled and fell, but each time Florence had her on her feet in an instant.

"Courage! Courage!" she whispered. "Only a few feet more and then the turn."

After what seemed an age they reached that turn and found themselves in a place where a breath of night air fanned their cheeks.

Buildings lay between them and the doomed executive building. The firemen were plying these with water. The great cement structure would be completely emptied of its contents by the fire but it would stand there empty-eyed and staring like an Egyptian sphinx.

"It may form a fire-wall which will protect this and the next street," said Florence hopefully. "The worst may be over."