The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal Part 12

He plunged into the door nearest at hand. Within he found himself in a room which was evidently a dining room. Supper was ready spread on the table. A lamp illumined the scene. How odd it seemed to be gazing at this peaceful domestic setting, while below and to one side of him, devouring flames were roaring and leaping. Save for a strong smell of smoke and a slight bluish haze, the room might have been a thousand miles away from the flaming building in which it was located.

Suddenly, as the boy stood there looking swiftly about him, there came a crash that shook the whole place like an earthquake.

"A floor's fallen!" gasped Rob. "Pray heaven it's not taken any part of that stairway with it!"

Brave as he was, the young scout turned pale and actually shook for an instant like a leaf. He knew full well that if that stairway, or any part of it, was gone, he was doomed to die as irrevocably as if a death sentence had been p.r.o.nounced upon him. All at once, from a room opening off the dining room came a wailing cry.

"Muvver! Muvver, I'se fwightened!"

Rob's heart gave a quick bound and he galvanized into instant action, a great contrast to his temporary state of stupefaction!

"All right, youngster. Don't cry, I'm coming," he called out, plunging forward.

Inside the room was a small crib, with a child about three years old lying on it clasping a doll in her arms.

"Who's oo?" she demanded in some alarm, as Rob, with his handkerchief tied over his face, advanced.

"Me? Why--why, I'm a fireman," exclaimed Rob; and then, with an inspiration, "Let's play that the place is on fire and I'm going to save you."

The child clapped her hands and her eyes shone. Rob picked her out of her crib and carried her tenderly out of the room.

"Now I'm going to cover your face just like real firemen do," he said, as they emerged on the landing and the hot breath of the furnace below was spewed up at them.

"Is dat in de game," inquired the child doubtfully, "an' will oo cover dolly's, too?"

"Yes, it's all part of the game," Rob rea.s.sured her. "Now then, there we are."

He enveloped the child in his coat which he had already removed and started for the landing. Suddenly he stopped, and from under the coat came a m.u.f.fled but inquisitive voice:

"Is 'oo cwyin', Mister Fireman?"

No, Rob was not crying; but he had just seen something that made his breath come heavingly and his heart almost stop beating. Below him he could see a dull red glow, growing momentarily brighter. No need was there for him to speculate on what that meant.

The stairway was on fire. His one means of escape from the blazing building was cut off.

For an instant Rob's head swam dizzily. He felt sick and shaky. Was he to die there in that inferno of flames? A cry was forced wildly from his cracked lips.

"Not like this! Oh, not like this!" he begged, raising his eyes upward.

CHAPTER XII.

IN PERIL OF HIS LIFE.

In the meantime, outside the building suspense had reached almost the breaking point. The Scouts still stood steady and staunch, but their faces were white and drawn. When the crash that announced the falling floor came, a man, wrought beyond the bearing point, cried out:

"There goes his last chance, poor kid!"

"Shut up, can't you," breathed a fierce, tense voice in his ear the next instant. "Don't you see his father and mother back there?"

It was only too true. Attracted by the excitement, Rob's father and mother had driven to the scene in their car. They reached it just in time to hear of Rob's heroic act. Now, white-faced and trembling, they sat hand in hand wretchedly waiting for news. As time pa.s.sed and the flames rose higher without a sign of the daring lad, their hearts almost ceased to beat. Seconds seemed hours, minutes eternity.

Then suddenly came a fearful cry. On the roof there had appeared the figure of Rob with a bundle which the crowd readily guessed to be the janitor's child clasped tightly in his arms. The flames, leaping from the cupola, illumined his form brightly and showed his pale, tense face.

Thwarted in his effort to descend by the stairway, Rob had managed to reach the roof through a scuttle.

"He's done it! Hurrah! The boy's saved the baby!" went up an ear-splitting cry from the unthinking in the crowd.

The others knew only too well that the reason that Rob had appeared on the roof betokened the terrible fact that his escape had been cut off. He was making a last desperate stand, with the flames drawing closer, and threatening to burst through the roof at any moment.

Every eye in that crowd was fixed on the solitary figure on the roof.

"Ladders! Get ladders," yelled the foreman, hoping against hope that one could be found tall enough to reach to that height.

Rob came forward to the cornice, and looked over as if gauging the height. They saw him shake his head. Then he looked behind him. Alas, there, too, all hope of escape was cut off. Between himself and an iron fire-escape at the back of the building, tongues of flame were now shooting through the roof.

"He's shouting something. Keep still, for heaven's sake!" came Merritt's voice suddenly.

A death-like silence followed. Then above the roar and crackle came a faint sound. It was Rob calling out some commands.

"A rope!--shoot it up here," was all they could distinguish.

Merritt darted forward and stood below the walls.

"Louder, Rob! Louder!" he besought.

"A rope! Bow--arrow--shoot it up!" came Rob's voice, audible to few, but his chum Merritt was the only one that understood. He was back among the Scouts in a flash. He seized Paul Perkins by the shoulder.

"Paul, your house is nearest. Run! Run as you never ran before and get your archery bow and lots of arrows."

Paul didn't stop to ask the meaning of this strange command, but darted off at top speed, the crowd opening for him.

"Ropes! Ropes and lots of string!" shouted Merritt next, appealing to the throng. Those who were closest realized that a plan to save Rob--although what it was they couldn't imagine--was to be tried. Neighbors of the Academy ran off at once and in a few minutes the Scouts were busy, under Merritt's directions, knotting ropes together to form one long line.

When this had been done, Merritt measured with his eye the height of the Academy walls. Then he set them to work knotting light twine together in as long a line as they could make. By this time Paul was back with the bow and arrow that the Scouts used at archery practice.

"Give it here," ordered Merritt tersely if ungrammatically.

What he was going to try was a repet.i.tion of the trick that had rescued some of the Eagle Patrol when they were imprisoned on the top of Ruby Glow in the Adirondacks on their memorable treasure hunt.

With a hand that was far from steady, Merritt knotted the end of the light string to an arrow. Then, placing the arrow in position, he drew the bow. It was plain enough to the dullest-witted now what he meant to do. His plan was to shoot the arrow, with the string attached, up on the roof where Rob could seize it. This done, it would be possible for the latter--if he had time--to haul up the rope, knot it to a chimney and slide down. It was a daring, desperate plan, but none other offered, and the fact that Rob had suggested it showed that his nerve was not likely to fail him in what might be aptly described as a supreme test.

Amid a dead silence Merritt let the arrow fly. It shot through the air, but instead of reaching the roof it struck the wall and rebounded. A cry went up from the watching crowd as it fell, having failed to accomplish its purpose. If Rob's face changed as he stood up there on the edge of the fire-illumined roof, it was not visible to those below him, keen as his disappointment must have been.

But Merritt was almost sobbing as he picked up the arrow and fitted it afresh for another trial. As he drew the bow with every ounce of strength he possessed, his lips moved in prayer that his next effort might be successful. At any moment now, the foreman of the fire-fighters told him, the roof might collapse, carrying with it the brave boy and his childish burden.

On the outskirts of the crowd, too, a white-faced man and woman were imploring Divine Providence to nerve Merritt's arm and aim. For one instant the bowstring was drawn taut till it seemed that the bow must snap under the terrific pressure.