It seemed hours before Kennedy deemed it safe to enter the office again with a light.When we did so, we made a rush for the little cubby-hole of an office at the other end.On the floor was a little can of ether, evaporated of course, and beside it a small apparatus apparently used for producing electric sparks.
"So, that's how he does it," mused Kennedy, fingering the can contemplatively."He lets the ether evaporate in a room for a while and then causes an explosion from a safe distance with this little electric spark.There's where your wire comes in, McCormick.Say, my man, you can switch on the lights from downstairs, now."As we waited for the watchman to turn on the lights I exclaimed, "He failed this time because the electricity was shut off."Precisely, Walter," assented Kennedy.
"But the flames which the night watchman saw, what of them?" put in McCormick, considerably mystified."He must have seen something."Just then the lights winked up.
"Oh, that was before the fellow tried to touch off the ether vapour,"explained Kennedy."He had to make sure of his work of destruction first - and, judging by the charred papers about, he did it well.
See, he tore leaves from the ledgers and lighted them on the floor.
There was an object in all that.What was it? Hello! Look at this mass of charred paper in the corner."He bent down and examined it carefully."Memoranda of some kind, Iguess.I'll save this burnt paper and look it over later.Don't disturb it.I'll take it away myself."Search as we might, we could find no other trace of the firebug, and at last we left.Kennedy carried the charred paper carefully in a large hat-box.
"There'll be no more fires to-night, McCormick," he said."But I'll watch with you every night until we get this incendiary.Meanwhile I'll see what I can decipher, if anything, in this burnt paper."Next day McCormick dropped in to see us again.This time he had another note, a disguised scrawl which read:
Chief I'm not through.Watch me get another store yet.
I won't fall down this time.
Craig scowled as he read the note and handed it to me."The man'sA.SPARK.
writing this time - like the second note," was all he said.
"McCormick, since we know where the lightning is going to strike, don't you think it would be wiser to make our headquarters in one of the engine-houses in that district?"The fire marshal agreed, and that night saw us watching at the fire-house nearest the department-store region.
Kennedy and I were assigned to places on the hose-cart and engine, respectively, Kennedy being in the hose-cart so that he could be with McCormick.We were taught to descend one of the four brass poles hand under elbow, from the dormitory on the second floor.
They showed us how to jump into the "turn-outs" - a pair of trousers opened out over the high top boots.We were given helmets which we placed in regulation fashion on our rubber coats, turned inside out with the right armhole up.Thus it came about that Craig and Ijoined the Fire Department temporarily.It was a novel experience for us both.
"Now, Walter," said Kennedy, "as long as we have gone so far, we'll 'roll' to every fire, just like the regulars.We won't take any chances of missing the firebug at any time of night or day."It proved to be a remarkably quiet evening with only one little blaze in a candy-shop on Seventh Avenue.Most of the time we sat around trying to draw the men out about their thrilling experiences at fires.But if there is one thing the fireman doesn't know it is the English language when talking about himself.It was quite late when we turned into the neat white cots upstairs.
We had scarcely fallen into a half doze in our strange surroundings when the gong downstairs sounded.It was our signal.
We could hear the rapid clatter of the horses' hoofs as they were automatically released from their stalls and the collars and harness mechanically locked about them.All was stir, and motion, and shouts.Craig and I had bounded awkwardly into our paraphernalia at the first sound.We slid ungracefully down the pole and were pushed and shoved into our places, for scientific management in a New York fire-house has reached one hundred per cent efficiency, and we were not to be allowed to delay the game.
The oil-torch had been applied to the engine, and it rolled forth, belching flames.I was hanging on for dear life, now and then catching sight of the driver urging his plunging horses onward like a charioteer in a modern Ben Hur race.The tender with Craig and McCormick was lost in the clouds of smoke and sparks that trailed behind us.On we dashed until we turned into Sixth Avenue.The glare of the sky told us that this time the firebug had made good.
"I'll be hanged if it isn't the Stacey store again, shouted the man next me on the engine as the horses lunged up the avenue and stopped at the allotted hydrant.It was like a war game.Every move had been planned out by the fire-strategists, even down to the hydrants that the engines should take at a given fire.
Already several floors were aflame, the windows glowing like open-hearth furnaces, the glass bulging and cracking and the flames licking upward and shooting out in long streamers.The hose was coupled up in an instant, the water turned on, and the limp rubber and canvas became as rigid as a post with the high pressure of the water being forced through it.Company after company dashed into the blazing "fireproof" building, urged by the hoarse profanity of the chief.
Twenty or thirty men must have disappeared into the stifle from which the police retreated.There was no haste, no hesitation.
Everything moved as smoothly as if by clockwork.Yet we could not see one of the men who had disappeared into the burning building.
They had been swallowed up, as it were.For that is the way with the New York firemen.They go straight to the heart of the fire.
