"Jump in and save as much as you can!" ordered Bert. "Unreel, Cole!
Tom? take the nozzle as close as possible! I'll give you the full
pressure at once. You'll need all you can get for this fire!"
Vincent's engine already had a chemical stream on the blaze, and it
was doing effective work wherever the fluid was directed. But quite an
area was now blazing.
There was a hiss as the gas began to form in the copper cylinder when
Bert turned the valve, and an instant later a second whitish stream
was being directed at the licking tongues of fire.
"If--we--only--had--my--force--pump!" panted Cole, who had not yet
recovered his breath.
"Looks as if we were going to have it!" exclaimed Bert, as the old
hand-engine was wheeled up, and the boys, with some men to aid them,
formed a bucket line, and prepared to work the handles, while the
three lengths of hose, including the one from Cole's force-pump, were
run out.
"Shall we start in, Bert?" cried Fred Newton, who constituted himself
captain of the hand-engine company.
"Let her go!" yelled the chief through his trumpet, for it needed a
strong voice to be heard above the din.
The young firemen were doing fine work.
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