“You stay with the tender until I send for you!” cried Captain Murphy, as he disappeared through the crowd.
It was the first dangerous fire that Bruce had ever witnessed, and, having tied the horses to a convenient tree, he climbed up on the tender in order to get a good view of what was going on.
A slight blaze had started in some cotton waste in a five-story brick building used for manufacturing purposes, and by the time the firemen arrived the smoke was pouring out of the upper windows in dense clouds, while the workmen and women were escaping, bareheaded, to the street, many of them coming through the big door on the ground floor, while others, in their anxiety to save themselves, came crashing through the lower windows and jumped to the sidewalk, heedless of the flying splinters of glass. The fire-escape, a series of iron balconies connected by ladders, was by this time crowded with frightened women making the best of their way to the ground, and it seemed to Bruce’s excited mind that the whole building must be full of human beings and that many of them would inevitably perish before aid could reach them.
By this time half a dozen policemen, who had been summoned by the alarm, had driven back the rapidly gathering crowd and established “fire lines” about the burning building. Chief Trask had assumed command of all the operations, and the men were working rapidly and effectively under his orders. Familiar as he was with the quick methods of the department, Bruce was surprised to see what progress had been made while he was tying his horses and climbing up into the driver’s seat of the tender. The engine company had already connected their hose, stretched a suitable length of line and attached a brass pipe to the end of it, while the men from the truck had placed a tall ladder against the building and were preparing to ascend it. The other engine had also made connection with a hydrant around the corner, and the noise that the two machines made was audible over everything else. And now Captain Murphy gave the word of command to his men and, with the pipe in his hand, entered the building, the others following, carrying the hose in their arms, each man about twenty-five feet—half the distance between the joints—from the one behind him. Bruce saw that Tom Brophy was half way up the tall ladder and was shouting to a woman who clung, nearly crazed with fright, to a window on the fourth floor.