"What are we going to do?" cried Vincent to the young captain. "We can't get out engine down there!"

Bert was puzzled. It was a new problem for the amateur fireman, and he hardly knew what to do. But to get close enough to the blaze to use the engine and at the same time have a supply of water, was not an easy thing to work out.

Just then the burning barge swung down the lake, for the cables had been eaten through by the flames, and the wind was carrying it away.

The sight of that gave Bert an inspiration.

"Come on!" he cried. "I see a way!"

"How?" asked Cole.

"We'll run the engine out on that empty flat-boat. We can pole it out into the lake, and play on the barge from the side where there are no flames! Lively, now, boys!"

They saw his meaning at once. There were plenty of boards at hand to make a runway for the engine, and in a little while it was on the flatboat. Then, with long poles which reached to the bottom of the lake, the boat was shoved out from sh.o.r.e.

"The barge is adrift!" cried Tom Donnell.

"Then we've got to go after it!" responded Bert. "We can make a line fast and tow it away, or it will set the other barges below here on fire, and we'll have more than we can handle. If we can keep the blaze to the one barge we'll be all right."

It was hard work, but the boys accomplished it. They put their flatboat close to the side of the blazing craft, where there were no flames, and made fast. Then they poled both boats well out into the lake.

"The dock is burning!" cried Cole.

"Let the bucket brigade attend to that," answered Herbert. "We've got our hands full here!"

Indeed they had, but the contest was more even now. The boys, using buckets with ropes attached, dipped from the lake the water which they poured into the engine, tank, and then the three streams were turned on the burning barge.

CHAPTER XV

A GENEROUS OFFER

Never since they had organized their little department had the boys worked under such difficulties. There was no getting away from this blaze. They were fast to it, and to cut loose meant to endanger other lumber barges nearby, which would mean a terrible conflagration.

It was hard work to keep the burning boat and that on which the engine was out in the lake, as a strong wind was forcing them both toward sh.o.r.e. It was also difficult to operate the pump, for the engine did not set level, and the boys on top of the tank had to cling there as best they could and send the big handles up and down. It was hard work to stand the fierce heat and choking smoke which enveloped them every now and again, as the wind shifted.

But the boys were no "milksops." They stuck to it, though it meant much physical pain. They gritted their teeth, and held their breaths when it was necessary. Some clung to the poles like grim death and prevented the barges from drifting, and all the while others were dipping and pumping water.

"I--I think we've got her!" cried Cole, when this desperate work had been going on for ten minutes.

"Don't be too sure!" cautioned Captain Bert. "There's lots of fire yet!"

There was, but the three streams of water, even if one was a small one, were beginning to tell. Gradually the flames amid the lumber on the barge began to die away. Once or twice it seemed as if the boat would break loose and go drifting down on the others, but grit told, and the boys held the craft.

"She's out now!" cried Vincent, as only a pall of smoke seemed to hang over the barge, and the boys at the brakes, hearing this with feelings of relief, ceased pumping. No sooner had they stopped than the flames burst out in a new place, and flared up fiercely.

"Jump right on the barge and take the hose with you," cried Bert, for the fire had been extinguished on that end of the barge nearest the flat-boat. "The water will do more good at close range."

The young firemen needed no second order. Dragging three lines of hose with them they leaped aboard the flaming boat and scrambled over the piles of charred lumber to the farther end, where the flames now were.

Then the fire gave up the fight. The last flame was quenched and the boys could take a much-needed rest.

"What'll we do now?" asked Cole of Bert. Every one seemed to depend on the young captain for instructions.

"I think we'd better run the barge ash.o.r.e below here," he said. "Then there'll be no danger if the fire breaks out again."

"I'll guarantee that fire won't break out again," boasted Cole. "We soaked it too well."

"You can't tell what a fire will do," replied Bert. "It may be smouldering down in a corner where the water didn't reach."

"Have Cole leave his force pump on guard," suggested Vincent, "That pump ought to be able to put out a fire all alone."

"Humph! That pump's all right, if you do make fun of it!" declared the owner of the latest addition to the fire apparatus. "It'll throw a stream farther than either of the big hose on this engine."

"Well, let's run the barge ash.o.r.e, then pole back and get our engine off," proposed Bert. "I guess it's safe enough to leave the barge now."

They tied the blackened load of lumber in a little shallow cove, where, if it did start to burn again, no damage would result. Then they went back to the lumber yard, where they found a big crowd waiting them. The fire on the dock had been extinguished by members of the bucket brigade and had not amounted to much.

"Boys, I want to shake hands with every one of you!" exclaimed a voice, as Bert led his command ash.o.r.e. "You did me a great service to-night, and I'll not forget it. But for your prompt action my lumber yard would have been destroyed and several of my valuable barges besides."

The speaker was Mr. Perrett Bergman, owner of the lumber yard, and, as each boy stepped ash.o.r.e, he shook him warmly by the hand.

"Yes, Mr. Bergman, those boys certainly did themselves proud," said Mayor Appelby. "They're almost as good as a regular department."

"That's what they are. Well, I'll have something to say about that later. Now, I must go and see if there are any stray sparks around anywhere, and I want to investigate this fire. I have an idea it was set by tramps. That barge came down the lake early this evening, and the men in charge of it told me they threw a tramp overboard who was stealing a ride on it."

"Threw him overboard?" repeated Mr. Appelby.

"Yes. I told them that was the wrong thing to do, as the man might have been drowned, but lumbermen are rather rough. However, the tramp swam ash.o.r.e, they told me. I have an idea he might have set the barge afire for revenge."

"It's possible," admitted the mayor. "I'll tell Constable Stickler to be on the watch for any suspicious characters."

Bert, who heard this conversation, wondered if the tramp he had rescued from the brook, or any of his companions, had started the fire.

"I hope the one I saved didn't do it," mused the boy. "He seemed like a decent chap in hard luck." Nothing was ever learned, however, of how the fire started. Certainly the tramp stenographer had nothing to do with it.

Several members of the bucket brigade a.s.sisted the boys in getting the engine off the flatboat. In fact, of late the men fire-fighters of Lakeville were beginning to entertain different feelings toward their boy rivals. They saw that the lads meant business, and that they were a corps of very efficient youngsters. Some of the men imagined that the volunteers were only doing the thing for fun, but what happened at the lumber yard blaze convinced them that they were mistaken.

"We seem to be right in it," remarked Cole, as they were dragging the engine back to quarters a little later. "Plenty of fires for us to put out lately."

"Yes. I wonder what Mr. Bergman meant when he said he'd not forget what we did for him?" asked Vincent.

"Oh, probably he's just like old Sagger," replied Tom Donnell. "You remember, Sagger promised us a hundred dollars for helping put out the fire in his shop."

"That's so; he did."

"Yes, but we haven't seen the hundred dollars yet, and I don't believe we ever will," declared Tom. "He's too stingy to give it to us. If we had it we could finish paying for the engine and get uniforms. That's what we need. I've worn out two suits of clothes running to fires lately."