Eagerly, and with their pulses bounding like mad, they awaited the arrival of the woman. Many others had also turned to greet her, sensing some fresh calamity, before which even the burning of the poor widow's cottage would sink into insignificance.
"Is she here, men?" gasped the woman, almost out of breath. "Have any of you seen Lucy Badger? We can't find her anywhere. Is that Fred there on the ground? He ought to know, because his mother says he must have taken his sister from the house."
They all turned toward Fred. He still sat there looking white and weak, though he was evidently recovering by degrees from his swoon after being hit on the head by some falling object. He looked up in sudden anxiety as he heard the woman speaking.
"What's the matter, Mrs. Moody?" he asked, trying to get on his knees, though the effort was almost too much for his strength. "What's that you said about my sister Lucy? Oh! isn't she with mother and Barbara? I thought sure I saw her in the crowd while I was working trying to save some of the furniture mother valued."
"We can't find the girl anywhere!" the woman cried, in anguish, "and perhaps she's still in there, stupefied by the smoke, and unable to save herself, poor, poor thing. Oh! somebody must try to find out if it's so. Fred, are you able to make the attempt?"
Poor Fred fell back on his knees. His powers of recuperation did not seem equal to the demand. He groaned miserably on discovering how unable he was to doing what in his manly heart he believed to be his solemn duty.
Jack was about to take it upon himself to attempt the dangerous rôle when to his astonishment the mysterious stranger sprang up, and made a thrilling announcement.
"Let me try to save the child; it is no more than right that I should be the one to risk his life!"
Possibly some of the men might have laid hands on the stranger and prevented his attempting such a rash act, for with the house so filled with smoke and flame it seemed next door to madness for any one to brave the peril that lay in wait. He managed to elude them, however, and to the astonishment of the three boys in particular, plunged recklessly through the door where vast columns of smoke could be seen pouring forth.