Chapter XVIII: The Daring Rescue

Just how they made their way up those stairs Leslie never could tell. The first thing he knew he found himself on the upper landing, and facing a sheet of flames that made the whirling smoke wreaths look strangely like some kind of demon stretching out a myriad hands toward him.

Dick was for pushing on, even though to do so he had to advance in the direction where the fire was most furious. He kept fingering the wall as he went, because with one hand holding the tied handkerchief partly over his eyes he could not depend on his sight to tell him when he reached the door of the room in which he knew the widow had taken up her quarters with her little son.

Fortunately, it was not at the extreme rear of the house, where the fire seemed to be in absolute control. Dick remembered feeling very thankful on this account as he continued to grope his way along.

Whenever the flames died down for a second or two, the utmost darkness reigned in that upper hall. Then, suddenly, there would come another flash of brilliant illumination, accompanied by a dull roar.

Now they had reached the door he sought. To the horror of the boy when he turned the knob, it refused to give way. Evidently, when Mrs. Nocker went to her room earlier in the evening, she had locked the door, being more or less timid about sleeping in the big house, with only Mrs. Kelly for company, and she in a distant part of the building.

Dick commenced to pound on the door with his clenched fist. Leslie added to the din by kicking furiously at the panels.

“Tilly! wake up! wake up!” shouted Dick, using the name he had heard his mother speak so often; for this young widow of Amos Nocker had seemed almost like her own daughter to kind-hearted Mrs. Horner. “Mrs. Nocker, wake up!”

There was no reply to all this racket. Apparently, the smoke had reduced the inmate of the room to a condition where she knew next to nothing of what was going on around her.

Some boys would have been tempted to give up in despair when meeting with such apparently insurmountable difficulties. Dick was not built along that order. He no longer used his fists to pound on the door, but started to hurl himself against the panels as furiously as possible.

Again and again did he cast his whole weight forward, regardless of the shock he sustained through the impact. He could feel that with each successive smash the fastenings of the door seemed to weaken. This encouraged the boy to even greater exertions, and there was Leslie, too, adding his weight to the assault.

After half a dozen blows of this character, the door could hold out no longer, and Dick found himself staggering into the room. It was filled with smoke, though as yet the flames had not intruded.

Dick started to grope his way over to the nearest window, which, upon reaching, he threw wide open. This created a draught of air, and started the stagnant smoke to moving outwardly.

“Here they are, Dick!” he heard Leslie shouting, and it gave him a thrill just to know that he had at least made no mistake in the apartment.

The widow must have fallen asleep in her chair, for she was fully clothed, and had undoubtedly been unconsciously inhaling the suffocating smoke as she slept. Billy was in his little bed close by, his curly head almost covered by the spread, which fact Dick believed had been the main cause for his not succumbing before now.

When Dick shook him the boy aroused himself. He was drowsy, and hardly seemed to know where he was, or who had awakened him.

Dick snatched the child up in his arms, wrapping a blanket around him. Leslie, in the meantime, was shaking Tilly, with some hope of arousing her to a sense of her peril, for neither of the boys could readily carry her from the building.

He was meeting with some measure of success, too, for already Tilly had moved, and possibly the shock of finding herself surrounded by smoke would start her into fresh activity.

“Can you get her on her feet?” shouted Dick in his chum’s ear.

“I’ll do my best,” replied the other, bravely.

“Wait for me here,” Dick went on to tell him. “I’ll take a look, and see if we dare risk the stairs again.”

Dick had not forgotten those creeping flames that were already attacking the banisters when they ascended. He had a fear that even in so short a time they might have attained such headway as to make a further use of the stairs impossible.

No sooner had he pushed out into the upper hall than he discovered that his worst fears were realized, for the fire had made such headway that the stairs seemed to be a mass of flames, through which any descent might be reckoned impossible.

Back into the room Dick hurried. The little fellow whom he had swathed in the blanket, moved uneasily in his arms, but seemed fairly content to allow himself to be taken care of. Perhaps he had recognized Dick’s voice when the boy spoke in his ear, and felt the utmost confidence in his protector.

Once in the room, Dick found to his extreme satisfaction, that Leslie had succeeded in arousing the young woman. Tilly was able to walk by now, though still in a half stupor, and hardly comprehending what it all meant.

“How about it?” shouted Leslie, as he discovered the presence of his chum; and it must be confessed that there was considerable anxiety in his tone, for the situation looked most desperate.

“No use trying the stairs again,” Dick sent back at him. “They’re all afire. We must escape through a window, I reckon!”

This was not the most comforting news Leslie could have received, for when he had thrust his head out of the said window it was to see forked flames shooting from below, and twisting upwards menacingly.

Dick himself did not like the looks of things it seemed, for after a hurried examination, he drew back again.

“Cut off there, it looks like!” he called. “Along at the other window there’s a better chance. Come after me, and fetch Mrs. Nocker.”

The other window he kicked out as he reached it, and the jangling glass must have made a queer sound as it rattled to the ground below. One look told Dick that so far the fire had not reached this particular section of the house. The earth lay about fifteen feet below, and had he only himself to think about a handy water pipe would have afforded him a ready means of getting down.

Placing Billy on the floor, Dick darted over to the bed he had seen in a corner of the room. From this he snatched all the covers, sheets, blankets and spread, and was back at the window in a “jiffy,” as he would himself have said.

Again looking out he saw that there were moving figures down below. Some of the fire-fighters had arrived, and were hurrying around the house to find where they could best attack the flames, once the water came into the hose they carried.

Dick instantly started to shout at them, and great was the surprise of the men at discovering a head in the open window; for like most of Cliffwood’s citizens, up to then they had firmly believed the Brandon place untenanted.

“Come below here!” was what Dick called at the top of his voice. “There is a child up with us, and a lady too. The stairs are all ablaze, and we can’t get down that way. You must help us!”

“All right, sonny!” shouted the foreman, whom Dick recognized as big Hen Hess, the brawny blacksmith of the town. “We’ll have you out of that safe and sound, never fear. Don’t jump, whatever you do!”

With that he sent several of the men hurrying away. No doubt they were intending to fetch a ladder; but impatient Dick could not wait for that. He hurried once more back to the bed, and carried the mattress with him across the room, thrusting it through the window, and allowing it to fall to the ground.

Next, he snatched up a blanket and hurled this down to the hands uplifted to catch it.

“Hold that out, for I’m going to drop the boy down!” he shouted between his two hands, held up in lieu of a speaking trumpet.

The firemen knew their business, and four of them instantly stretched the stout blanket as wide as it would go. Then Dick, without the least hesitation, held little Billy, still swathed in his covering, through the window, and let him drop.

“Bully! he’s safe, all right!” exclaimed Leslie.

Tilly gave a scream when she saw Dick let her little darling drop; but on discovering that the child was safe, had once more shown that she was fully aroused to the occasion. She assisted Dick to fasten one end of some knotted sheets around her body under the arms, and was even in the act of clambering through the window, meaning to allow the boys to lower her, when Leslie gave a whoop.

“There they come with the ladder, Dick! We go down as easy as falling off a log, after all!”