The girls were totally oblivious of their smart gowns, now badly bedraggled.
“Take this sand!” wailed Belle. “I don’t know what to do with it!”
“Grab this sand from the girls!” yelled Jack to Ed, Walter and Norton, who, at that moment came out in Jack’s car. “Throw it on the blazing gasoline! What kept you?”
“Your car wouldn’t crank!” cried Walter. “It’s all right now, though–just scorched a little in the rear!”
The three lads, Norton clinging to the run-board, got the car to safety, and then raced back, grabbed the sand from Belle, Bess and Eline, and followed Jack into the garage, which was now under a pall of smoke.
The tin tops of the extinguishers were yanked off, and the chemical powder sprinkled toward the blaze. Sand was also cast on it, but the fire had spread more than the boys had thought. The choking fumes, too, drove the amateur blaze-fighters back.
Again Cora came running from the house through the drenching rain.
“I can’t get the fire department on the wire!” she cried. “Something is wrong with the telephone!”
“It’s the storm, I guess,” answered Jack, coming to the door of the old barn that had been converted into a garage. He had to have a breath of air.
“Oh, can we help?” cried Eline.
“Better stay out,” gasped Ed, as he too, came for a little relief. “I guess we can keep it from spreading.”
By this time several men had run in from the street.
“Where’s your water?” asked one.
“Don’t want any!” cried Jack. “It’s gasoline. Get more sand if you want to–dry, if you can find it!”
He kicked one of the empty pails toward the men. A flash of lightning blazed over the structure, and the thunder rumbled as the rain came down harder than ever.
“This rain’ll put it out soon enough!” shouted one of the men helpers. The boys had gone back into the barn, leaving the girls outside.
“I can get some sand in that!” cried Belle, as she saw a pan in front of the dog’s kennel–it was used to contain his dinner. The girl began scooping up in it some of the damp gravel from the drive.
“Don’t! Don’t!” cried her sister. “Drop it. You mustn’t hold metal in a thunder storm.”
“Oh, I’m going in!” exclaimed Eline. “I can’t bear to be in the open when it lightens.”
She darted toward the garage. Instinctively the others followed. There seemed to be less smoke coming out now, and no blaze could be seen.
“I guess they can stop it,” murmured Cora. “Oh, I do hope they can!”
“Let’s go in and help!” cried Bess. “They may need us!”
Bravely the motor girls entered the garage. A shift in the wind had blown the smoke away from the door. They could see the boys and men fighting the flames that were in a far corner of the main room.
Belle suddenly ran forward and dashed on the blaze the pan of sand that she had not relinquished.
“Bravo!” cried Jack. “You’re a heroess!”
He held his hand to his smarting eyes.
“Let me take that extinguisher!” begged Belle, plucking a half-emptied one from him.
“Here’s one for me!” exclaimed Bess, picking it up off the floor. It had not been opened. She knocked off the top and, doing as the others did, she sent the powder in a sweeping motion toward the flames. Some of the men ran out for more sand. The blaze was being well fought now. There was really no need for the fire department.
Above the place where the autos were stored were rooms formerly occupied by the coachman and his family, before Mrs. Kimball disposed of her horses. The stairs to these rooms were boxed in, a door leading directly to the path that went to the driveway.
“I can go up there and get another extinguisher!” cried Cora, indicating the stairway. “I know there’s one there.”
“No need to!” exclaimed Ed, who again had to get a breath of fresh air. But Cora was already in the enclosed stairway.
The next moment she shrieked:
“Oh, what is it? Oh dear! Who is it? Come quick–someone!” Everyone was startled–even the danger of the now almost extinguished fire spreading again could not detract from the import of danger they recognized in Cora’s voice.
Some one seemed to answer her from the stairway.
“Don’t! Please don’t! I did not do it! Let me go! Please do!”
“What is it, Cora?” called Jack, preparing to go to her.
His sister had found a woman in the hallway–a strange woman who seemed much excited. Her pleading tones as she confronted Cora touched the girl’s heart.
“Don’t let them know I am here–not yet!” begged the stranger. “I can explain–everything. Oh, so much depends on this! Please do as I say!”
“All right!” said Cora, making a sudden resolve. “I’ll let you explain.”
“But keep the others back–they are coming!”
“I’ll send them back.” Cora took a few steps toward the door. She could hear some one running across the garage floor.
“It’s all right!” cried Cora. “Go back and fight the fire, boys. I’ll be there in a minute. I want to get that other extinguisher to make certain. But I thought a rat – ”
She knew that would be explanation enough for her cries, and from where they were the boys, girls, and men now in the garage could not see her or the strange woman.
“A rat!” cried Jack, with a laugh, as he heard his sister’s word. “The idea of being frightened at a rat in a time of fire!”
“I guess the rodents will make short tracks,” was Ed’s opinion. “Come on, we’ve got to give it a little more, Jack!”
The boys went back to the fire, Bess, Belle and Eline, who had taken shelter in the garage, watching them. It was pouring too hard to stand outside, and, now that the smoke had mostly disappeared, there was not much discomfort. The danger, too, was practically over, as a can of gasoline that had not burned had been set outside. There had been really more smoke than fire from the first.
Cora went back to the strange woman.
“You need not be afraid,” spoke the girl, in a tone that gave encouragement. “We will not blame you too much–until we have heard your story. But of course I must know who you are.”
“Yes–yes,” answered the woman. She sank down on the stairs. The place was free of smoke, and some distance from the blaze. Suddenly the stranger arose, and clutching Cora’s arm in a grip that hurt, and that showed the nervous tension under which she was laboring, she whispered:
“I
