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Title: Larry Barlow's ambition
The adventures of a young fireman
Author: Edward Stratemeyer
Illustrator: W. H. Fry
Release date: November 10, 2025 [eBook #77209]
Language: English
Original publication: Akron: Saalfield Publishing Company, 1907
Credits: Aaron Adrignola, Brian Wilsden, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LARRY BARLOW'S AMBITION ***
Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold
text by =equal signs=.
[Illustration: “The Tines of the Fork Entered the Lion’s Throat and He
Uttered a Roar of Rage”]
LARRY BARLOW’S AMBITION
OR
THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG FIREMAN
BY
ARTHUR M. WINFIELD
AUTHOR OF
“A YOUNG INVENTOR’S PLUCK,”
“THE ROVER BOYS AT SCHOOL,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY W. H. FRY
AKRON, OHIO
_THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY_
NEW YORK 1907 CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT, 1902,
BY
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
Made by
Robert Smith Printing Co.,
Lansing, Mich.
INTRODUCTION
MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS:
“Larry Barlow’s Ambition” relates the trials and adventures of a young
country lad, who loves to run to fires, and whose ambition is to become
a regular fireman in some large city, and to do something which will
materially assist the usefulness of this all-important service.
Larry lives with his sister in a small village, and during his odd time
conceives the idea of a patent extension ladder which, if successful,
will be of great use in fighting fires in tall buildings. Full of pluck
and determination he goes to New York, and because of his bravery at
a fire manages to get into the regularly-paid fire department, after
passing the necessary examinations.
From that time on our hero finds his occupation one full of peril and
excitement. But he does his duty manfully, and works his way upward
step by step. He befriends a girl whom he rescues at the burning of a
hotel, and then does his share toward solving the mystery concerning
the young lady’s heritage.
My main object in writing this tale was to give to the girls and boys
some idea of fire departments as they exist in our large cities,
especially in New York. We often see firemen at work, but as we watch
their heroic and intelligent labors we give small thought to the manner
in which they are schooled to do these things—for it is to a regular
school of instructions that a New York fireman must go before he is
allowed to “run with the machine,” as it is called.
Affectionately your friend,
ARTHUR M. WINFIELD.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I.
Something About Larry 9
CHAPTER II.
The Extension Ladder 17
CHAPTER III.
“Save My Mary” 25
CHAPTER IV.
A Daring Leap for Life 33
CHAPTER V.
Larry Makes a Friend 40
CHAPTER VI.
Off for New York City 48
CHAPTER VII.
The Strangers Again 57
CHAPTER VIII.
Something of a Mystery 65
CHAPTER IX.
Like a Rat in a Trap 74
CHAPTER X.
Larry Joins the New York Fire Department 81
CHAPTER XI.
Sad News for Mary Vern 88
CHAPTER XII.
What Became of Larry 96
CHAPTER XIII.
A Run for Liberty 104
CHAPTER XIV.
Mary Vern’s Guardian 111
CHAPTER XV.
A Full-Fledged Fireman at Last 119
CHAPTER XVI.
Face to Face with an Enemy 129
CHAPTER XVII.
A War of Words 136
CHAPTER XVIII.
Martin Pollox Makes a Move 144
CHAPTER XIX.
The Great Oil Dock Fire 153
CHAPTER XX.
The Man Larry Saved 160
CHAPTER XXI.
An Unexpected Meeting 166
CHAPTER XXII.
Lank Possy Vows Vengeance 173
CHAPTER XXIII.
What Happened to Caleb Backstay 181
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Tenement House Plot 189
CHAPTER XXV.
Out of a Fire Trap 197
CHAPTER XXVI.
What Mary Vern Had to Tell 204
CHAPTER XXVII.
Face to Face with a Lion 211
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Decoy Letter 218
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Capture in the Boat House 227
CHAPTER XXX.
Pete Johnson’s Revelation 234
CHAPTER XXXI.
In which Larry Acts Quickly 242
CHAPTER XXXII.
An Unexpected Return—Conclusion 250
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE.
“The Tines of the Fork Entered the Lion’s Throat and
He Uttered a Roar of Rage” _Frontispiece_
“Larry Caught the Unconscious Girl to His Breast, and
Made the Fearful Leap Toward the Net Stretched
Far Below” 39
“With a Groan He Turned Over in Our Hero’s Arms
and Became Unconscious” 161
“He Leaped the Distance and Came Down on the Next
Roof in Safety” 200
=LARRY BARLOW’S AMBITION.=
CHAPTER I.
SOMETHING ABOUT LARRY.
“Now, if this ladder will only work, it ought to be worth a good deal
to every large city fire department.”
The speaker was a tall, well-built young fellow of nineteen. He had
curly brown hair, clear brown eyes and a face that was as handsome as
it was full of power.
He stood at a working bench set up in a little garret chamber of a
cottage. The walls were hung with pictures and drawings of various
machines, the bench was littered with tools, and the floor was covered
with shavings.
On the bench in front of the young worker rested the wooden model of a
peculiarly constructed extension ladder, a ladder meant to be made out
of steel.
The model was built to the scale of one inch to the foot, and when shut
up was less than twenty inches in length. This meant that the ladder
itself when shut up would be less than twenty feet long.
But when opened up, by means of an intricate piece of machinery which
was part of the model, the ladder would extend into the air to a height
of over two hundred feet, and when planted in the street according to
directions, would be strong enough to support the weight of several men
as well as four lines of hose pipes, the lines to be used at the full
force of the fire engines operating them.
From the above the reader will understand that the extension ladder was
meant to be used exclusively by fire departments.
Larry Barlow, the young inventor, had worked on this model during his
spare time for over six months. He was, by trade, a machinist, employed
as such in the Humber Printing Press Works at a small town up the
Hudson River, which I shall call Ferryville.
Larry was an orphan and lived with his sister, Kate, who was a year
older, and who kept house for him. The young machinist earned a salary
of eighteen dollars per week and this enabled sister and brother to
live in a fairly comfortable, though not elegant style.
Larry was ambitious, and this was not to be wondered at. His father
before him had been an inventor and equally ambitious, and had once
perfected a novel elevator lift from which great things had been
expected. With his invention Mr. Barlow had departed for New York, and
from that city had written home that capitalists had offered him ten
thousand dollars for his patent rights, but that he had refused to sell
more than a half interest. Then, of a sudden, Mr. Barlow disappeared.
This was a great shock to Kate Barlow and likewise Larry, and much
worried the young machinist, who was just out of school at the time. He
went to the metropolis to look for his parent.
But Mr. Barlow could not be found, and although the police took up the
case, the mystery was not solved, nor was the invention recovered.
The particulars of the device were not known to anybody outside of
Mr. Barlow, so that so far as the invention went, it was lost to the
Barlows from that time on.
“But some day I’ll hunt down the man or men who did up father,” said
Larry to his sister. “And then—well, they had better beware that’s
all!” And his eyes shone in a way that made Kate’s blood run cold. Yet
she could not blame her brother for feeling so vindictive.
More than once Larry tried to rebuild the elevator lift as he
remembered it, but some parts were not clear to his mind and at last he
gave up the idea. Then he saw in a patent paper that there was a demand
from fire departments in all large cities for apparatus to be used in
fighting fires in tall office buildings, and he turned his attention to
the extension ladder.
Larry had always taken an interest in fire matters, and he was a member
of the Ferryville Volunteer Fire Department, being foreman of Hook and
Ladder Company No. 1. But he longed for something more thrilling than
this and once said, while at work in the shop, that he was going to try
to get into the New York City department.
“They won’t take a country jay like you,” said one of the machine-shop
hands, who heard Larry speak of this. “They don’t take nobody but
up-to-date city fellows.”
“I’m not such a country jay as you, Lank Possy,” retorted Larry.
“Huh! do you call me a country jay?” blustered Lank, who was a tall
young man, weighing a hundred and thirty pounds, and the bully of the
shop. “Take that back, Larry Barlow, or it will be the worse for you!”
And doubling up his fist he confronted Larry. But the young machinist
was undaunted and never budged an inch.
“You won’t hit me, Lank,” he said, calmly.
“And why not?”
“Because if you do you’ll get the worst of it.”
“A fight! A fight!” cried several of the shop-hands, and a crowd
quickly gathered around the pair.
Lank Possy let drive right and left intending to take our hero in the
nose.
Larry dodged two of the blows, but the third caught him on the neck
and sent him staggering up against a bench. At once the friends of the
bully set up a shout of delight.
Somewhat dazed, Larry braced up and stood on the defensive until he got
back his wind. Then, watching his chance, he made a feint at Possy’s
stomach. Down went the bully’s hands, and then up shot Larry’s left,
and the bully got a smashing blow on the chin which stretched him flat
on the floor.
“Hurrah for Larry Barlow!” was the cry from our hero’s friends.
“Wonder how Lank Possy likes that?”
More than dazed, Lank staggered to his feet, reeling like a drunken man.
“Who—ho hit me with a club?” he stammered.
“Nobody hit you with a club. Larry let you have it with his fist.”
“Somebody hit me with a club,” went on the bully. “You imp, I’ll fix
you!”
Lying close at hand was a short iron bar, and before anybody could stop
him, Lank Possy had this. Raising it over his head he made a murderous
rush for our hero.
Had the iron bar come down on Larry’s head our hero must have been
killed on the spot. But others leaped in and caught hold of the bar.
“For shame, Lank! Fight fair!” was the cry.
“Lemme alone!” burst out the bully, furiously. “I know what I’m doing!”
“No, you don’t. Larry hit you with his fist. Put down the bar!”
A babble of voices arose, in the midst of which came the cry:
“Stop it! the foreman! Get to work here comes old Grinder!”
Away scampered the workmen in all directions, leaving Larry and Lank
still confronting each other.
“What’s the meaning of this fighting?” demanded Amos Grinder, rushing
up.
He was a little, dried up old man, the terror of all who worked under
him, with one exception. That exception was Lank Possy, for Grinder
owed Lank’s father some money, and consequently he did not dare treat
the bully as harshly as he treated the other workmen.
“He struck me with a club—knocked me down!” answered the bully, before
our hero could speak.
“It’s not true!” cried Larry. “He began the quarrel by calling me a
country jay.”
“Stop!” ejaculated old Grinder. “I won’t have such talk here. We have
had trouble enough. Barlow, you can go to the office and get your time.”
“What, do you discharge me, Mr. Grinder?” gasped Larry, in amazement.
“I do.”
Although our hero did not know it, old Grinder had been hoping to
discharge somebody that day. He had a nephew coming on from the West,
and he wanted to put the young fellow at work under him. The shop was
now full, and room had to be made for the new arrival.
“Mr. Grinder, you are the meanest man I know!” burst out Larry. “I’ll
get out, but I shan’t forget how you have treated me.”
“Say another word and I’ll have you pitched out!” roared Amos Grinder,
his face growing red.
“You won’t touch me,” answered Larry.
Walking to his bench, he took off his overalls, rolled his tools up in
the garment and marched to the office. Here he received his time and
was paid off, and then started for home to tell his sister Kate the
disagreeable news.
CHAPTER II.
THE EXTENSION LADDER.
“Discharged! Oh, Larry, what will we do now? We have only a little
money saved up!”
Such were Kate’s words when he brought his story home.
“Don’t worry, Kate, I’ll land on my feet all right enough,” Larry
answered cheerfully. He was never one to look on the dark side, of a
thing.
“Do you think you can get another job in Ferryville?”
“Perhaps I can. I’m going to try over to the rolling mill, and at the
Hardware Works.”
But before going Larry went up to the garret room to look over his
invention and to speak the words with which our story opened.
Larry worked on his model for the rest of that day, and far into the
night.
“If I could only sell this we’d be in clover, and I could tell fellows
like old Grinder to go to Halifax!” said Larry, when Kate came up to
make him go to bed.
“That’s true, Larry,” she answered. “But come to bed now; you mustn’t
worry all night over your inventions.”
“I can’t help it, Kate,” he laughed. “I love the work. They tell me
Edison keeps at it sometimes for three and four days and nights at a
stretch, and I don’t wonder at it.”
Yet, though he went to bed late, Larry was up bright and early on the
day following, and after a hasty breakfast he started out to look for
another situation.
His first visit was to the rolling mill, a long, low place lying close
to the river. Here the noise was deafening, and our hero could hardly
make, himself heard as he approached the superintendent in the yard for
a job.
“Sorry Barlow,” said the superintendent, “but I haven’t any opening. If
I had I would take you on willingly. I knew your father, and he was a
fine man, and a splendid bench hand. Come around in a month or so and
see me again—if you don’t strike anything in the meantime.”
“I’ll remember that sir, and I thank you.”
At that moment one of the general managers of the rolling mill came up
to speak to the superintendent.
Larry walked away, but he had not gone over fifty paces when a boy came
running after him.
“Mr. Willis wants you,” he said. Willis was the superintendent’s name
and Larry at once went back.
“Mr. Hobart, our manager, wants a man to go to New York for him,”
explained the superintendent. “There is a special order to fill, and it
ought to be under the direction of a practical machinist. If you want
the job you can have it. It will take two or three days’ time.”
“I’ll take it,” answered our hero, willingly. It might give him just
the opening for which he was looking.
He walked into the office, and there received full directions as to
what to do. The errand pleased him greatly, for the work would take him
to one of the fire engine houses of the metropolis.
On the following morning he bade goodby to Kate, and set out for New
York, along with a fellow workman. The goods to be delivered went by
freight on one of the river boats.
Larry had not been to the metropolis for several years, and the sights
pleased him greatly, but nothing was so interesting to him as the
houses and apparatus of the fire department.
“You are interested, no doubt of that,” said one of the captains of a
downtown company, as he showed the youth around.
“I would like to be a New York fireman,” answered Larry. “Some day I’m
going to try to be, too,” he added.
“It’s a hard life, lad, and but little time to yourself.”
“I am a volunteer fireman up at Ferryville. I belong to the hook and
ladder company.”
“Yes? Then you must know something about the work, although let me
tell you that a fireman’s duties in this city are more perilous than
anywhere else. We often have dangerous conflagrations to fight.”
“I’d be willing to go where anybody else went,” answered Larry, readily.
“You might not be so willing if you saw where our boys are called on
to go—down in smoke-choked cellars, and into buildings stored with
dangerous chemicals and sometimes explosives?”
“Of course I wouldn’t want to lose my life, sir, but I wouldn’t hang
behind the rest, I am sure of it!” smiled Larry, confidently.
He was just preparing to leave the engine house, when an alarm rang
out. He had hardly time to step out of the way, when in leaped the
horses from the stable. The harness hung over them, and in a twinkle
the sets came down and were secured automatically. The fire under the
boiler was already lit, and down the stairs and the sliding pole came
the firemen, some donning their rubber boots and coats as they ran.
“Can I go?” asked Larry, eagerly.
“On foot—yes,” answered the captain. “No outsiders allowed on the
machine. It’s against the department rules.” And then, almost before
Larry knew it, the engine had left the house and was whirling down the
street as fast as three heavy and powerful horses could carry it.
“All right, I can run if I’m put to it!” muttered the young machinist,
and the way he sprinted over the sidewalk, through the streets and
among the trucks and cars caused many a person to gaze after him in
wonder.
The fire was in a downtown office building, and if the truth must be
told, Larry saw but little, for being only a private citizen, he was
speedily hustled back by a policeman, and then he had to keep outside
of the ropes which were stretched from point to point. But he watched
as much as he could see with interest, and spent a good part of the
time in inspecting the hook and ladder trucks and the extension ladder
truck which reached the scene.
“If my invention don’t beat that, then I’ll split it up for fire-wood,”
was what he told himself, as he looked the extension ladder over. “Mine
will go higher than that, it can be worked in a smaller space, and I’ll
bet it will bear twice, yes, three times as much weight and pressure.”
“What do you want here?” demanded one of the hook and ladder men, as
he knocked against Larry. He had had but little sleep for forty-eight
hours, and felt far from pleasant in consequence.
“I was only looking at the truck and the ladder, sir.”
“Well, clear out; we don’t want boys around.”
“Thank you—for nothing!” answered Larry.
“You needn’t get gay about it!” growled the fireman, savagely.
“And you needn’t get impudent,” returned Larry, and walked off.
Part of Larry’s errand called him uptown on the East side, and after
remaining at the fire as long as he dared, he inquired his way to the
entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge, and there took a Third Avenue Elevated
train uptown.
The train was fairly well filled, and the youth had to take a seat
directly behind one of the cross seats in the center of the car.
The cross seat was occupied by two men, who soon attracted his
attention. One was nicely dressed, and at least fifty years of age; the
other was younger, and much rougher in appearance.
“I think we can use that lift now,” one of the men was saying. “The
inventor has been dead several years, you know.”
“That’s true,” was the answer of the man who was well dressed. “But we
must go slow. He had a son, remember. The young man may be on the watch
for us.”
“Bah! He was from a town away up the river. I don’t believe he’ll ever
come to New York. I want some money, and if it’s in that elevator lift
I want to get it out. Nothing ventured nothing gained.”
The two men arose and hurried to quit the train, which had just rolled
into a station. Larry stared at them in amazement.
“They must be speaking of father’s invention,” he murmured to himself.
“I must find out who they are.”
CHAPTER III.
“SAVE MY MARY.”
There was a crowd on the station platform, and before Larry could get
out of the train the two men were lost to sight. In vain he looked for
them; they could not be found.
He went on his errand after that with a sober face. “I must find them
some time,” he thought. “But it won’t do any good to worry Kate about
this.”
The next day found him back to Ferryville, where he received seven
dollars and his expenses for his work. The superintendent told him to
come again if he did not find a steady place.
“Thank you, Mr. Willis, I will,” answered Larry, and hurried away. The
superintendent’s kind manner had warmed his heart.
“What a difference between him and old Grinder,” he thought. “And it
don’t cost anything to treat a fellow decently, either.”
From the rolling mill Larry proceeded to the Hardware Works, the
largest manufacturing plant of which Ferryville Boasted.
Here he had to wait nearly half an hour before he could see the foreman
to whom he was directed.
“Want a job, eh?” said the foreman, quickly. “Well, we want two more
machinists. Where are you from?”
Larry told him.
“Why did you leave?” was the next question.
“I didn’t leave. I was discharged for fighting. But it was not my
fault,” and Larry started to give the particulars.
The foreman, however, cut him short. “Can’t take you without a
recommendation,” he said. “If you can get that, I’ll see what I can do
for you, but not otherwise. Good-day,” and he turned away to go on with
his work.
“Well, that settles that,” thought our hero, as he walked away. “I’ll
never get a recommendation from the Printing Press Works, with old
Grinder down on me. I guess I’m knocked out all around.”
A good deal discouraged, but still a little hopeful, Larry determined
to cross the ferry and try some of the machine shops on the other side
of the river.
He was making his way to the little ferry house, when the ringing of a
distant bell brought him to a sudden halt.
“The fire bell!” he murmured, and began to count the strokes. “One,
two”—a pause—“one, two, three, four—box twenty-four! That’s down to
the new Riverside Hotel!”
The bell was still ringing as he set off on a run for the hook and
ladder house. He covered the ground quickly, and those who joined in
had all they could do to keep up with him.
“Where is the fire?” he asked, as he helped half a dozen men and boys
rush the long hook and ladder truck into the street.
“It’s the stables connected with the new hotel,” was the answer. “And
the wind is blowing right for the hotel itself.”
But little more was said, but as soon as the hook and ladder truck was
hauled into the street, Larry took charge, trumpet in hand.
“All together, boys!” he shouted. “Hike her up for fair! Don’t let the
others get to the fire first. Remember our motto: Always on hand!”
“That’s the talk!” came back from one of the men. “Away she goes. Make
her bounce!”
“The mud is deep on Wilson’s road,” went on Larry. “Haul her around by
the Stove Works. Now then, all together!”
And away rattled the long truck, with thirty odd men and boys pulling
on the long rope attached to the tiller.
At the corner they encountered the fire engine from the river section,
accompanied by the hose cart.
“Out of the way there!” yelled the man handling the engine. “Clear the
track!”
“Not much!” shouted Larry. “Go it, boys!” he yelled, and into the river
road swung the hook and ladder truck, a hundred feet in advance of the
engine. The men hauling the engine were chagrinned to see the truckmen
take the lead, but they could not help themselves, and soon the truck
was fairly running away from them.
The fire could now be seen clearly. As before said, it had started in
the stables attached to the hotel, but already the wind had carried the
flames to the hotel itself, and the magnificent structure, four stories
in height, looked as if it were doomed.
The hotel had been built by New York capitalists but two years before.
It contained over three hundred rooms, and as its location on the river
bank was beautiful, and its cooking unexcelled, the hotel was well
filled with people.
“That’s a fire, and no mistake!” said Gus Romer, one of the men at the
tiller, to Larry. “The hotel is doomed, I am afraid.”
“We must do our best to save the property,” answered Larry. “I hope all
the people are out.”
Around the hotel all was the wildest kind of excitement. The beautiful
grounds were strewn with furniture and trunks, and the patrons were
running around wildly, trying to find their friends or relatives.
As soon as possible Larry had his men bring out the ladders and place
them where they could be used to the best advantage. In the meantime,
two steamers came up and began to pour water onto the hottest part of
the fire.
“If we can get that L of the hotel down,” said the fire chief, “perhaps
we can save the rest of the building.”
“All right, chief, we’ll do our share,” answered Larry, and told his
men what was wanted.
A long ladder was placed close to the L and Larry went up with the
agility of a monkey, followed by Gus Romer and a fireman named
Rafferty. The three had axes in their hands, and were soon busy
chopping away some of the woodwork which connected the L with the main
hotel.
It was hot work, and dangerous, too, but our hero did not falter. He
had been in as bad a position before.
“My Mary! Save my Mary!” was the sudden cry and looking behind him,
Larry saw an old man stagger up through the hallway of the hotel, which
was rapidly filling with smoke.
“Where is your Mary?” asked our hero. He saw that the old man was ready
to drop from exhaustion.
“She was in Room 245, on the next floor,” gasped the old man. “Oh, save
her, save my daughter!” And then throwing up his arms, the old man fell
senseless at Larry’s feet.
Our hero was startled, but he did not allow his amazement to get the
better of him.
“Romer, carry him below, will you?” he asked, quickly.
“I will,” answered the fireman, dropping his axe. “But what are you
going to do?”
“Go up to Room 245 and see if anybody is there.”
“The old man must be mistaken. The proprietor said everybody was out of
the building.”
“Well, I’ll make sure.”
“But it’s dangerous!” urged Romer. “See how thick the smoke is!”
Larry did not hear the last words, for he was already making his way to
the broad and elegantly carpeted staircase. Up he went, two steps at
a time, keeping as close to the steps as possible, so as to avoid the
thickest of the smoke.
The upper floor gained, he could see but little. Yet he made out on one
door the number 231.
“Number 245 can’t be far off,” he reasoned.
He felt his way along the corridor. The smoke was so thick he was
almost afraid to open his eyes to look at the door plates. He took in a
breath of air, and it almost suffocated him.
“I can’t stand much more of this,” he thought, and gave a gasp. Then he
looked at another plate. It was number 243. Number 245 was but a few
steps further.
“Help! Help!” came a faint voice, and he rushed up to the door and
tried it. “Help!” repeated the voice from within.
“Courage, I will help you!” he cried, and threw his weight against the
door. It refused to give way, and he hurled himself at it once more.
Then came a sharp crack of the lock, and the door flew open and he
tumbled into the room.
CHAPTER IV.
A DARING LEAP FOR LIFE.
“Save me!” It was a beautiful girl who uttered the words, as she
staggered toward Larry. She was not more than fourteen years of age,
with golden hair and eyes of deepest blue.
As Larry gazed at her his heart leaped into his throat, because of her
apparent helplessness.
“I will save you—be calm,” he said, as he caught her by the hand. And
he went on: “Why didn’t you go below before? Why was the door locked?”
“I do not know why the door was locked,” she answered. “I did not lock
it.”
There was no time to say more, for the thick smoke was coming in
through the doorway.
“Quick, come with me!” cried Larry, and caught her by the shoulder to
lead her into the hallway.
“But the fire—I am afraid!” she faltered.
“I said I would save you,” he answered. “Come.”
Together they passed into the hallway. The smoke was growing thicker,
and from the end of the long corridor came the red glare of the
approaching flames. Whatever was to be done must be done quickly, and
no one realized that more keenly than did our hero.
The pair was still fifty feet from the staircase, when there came a
falling of a wall of the hotel L, and of a sudden a shower of sparks
swept along the corridor, alighting on the heads of both the girl and
Larry.
The girl shrieked with pain and alarm. But Larry brushed the sparks off
with his bare hand, first from her and then from himself.
“Oh, we are lost!” she wailed. “I—I cannot get my breath!” and she
sank down in a deathlike swoon.
The peril was certainly extreme, for the fire was coming closer each
instant. Many a man would have deserted the girl, and thought only to
save himself. But Larry Barlow was built of sterner stuff.
“I’ll save her or perish with her,” he thought, as he gazed at the
beautiful, marble-like face. He caught her in his arms and staggered on.
The fire was scorching hot, and the sparks were flying in all
directions. At last the stairs were gained. He gave one look below and
something like a groan forced itself from his lips.
The staircase was a mass of flames. Escape in that direction was cut
off completely.
“I must find some other way,” he told himself. But where? The fire was
now eating through the lower floors of the hotel in every direction.
He could not remain where he was, and looking around he espied a ladder
reaching to the roof of the main building. Should he go up there? It
seemed the only chance.
“I’ll try it!” he muttered, between his set teeth. “Heaven help us
both!”
With the dead weight of the girl in his arms, Larry mounted the ladder
and forced open the scuttle to the roof. Then he crept out.
The roof was flat, of wood covered with tin. The fire was already
crawling up to one side, but where Larry stood with his human burden
the air was still pure, and he drank in a deep breath, which gave him
back some of his strength.
What was he to do next? Letting the girl rest on the roof, he ran
first to one edge and then to another, that which overlooked the road
running between the building and the river.
A shout went up from below.
“There is Larry Barlow on the roof!”
“Larry how did you get up there? Come down!” shouted some of his
friends.
“I have a girl with me!” he shouted back, trying his best to make
himself heard above the roaring of the flames. “Can you get a ladder up
to me?”
“We will,” was the answer.
The hook and ladder men worked with a will, but when they brought out
their longest ladder, they found it too short by twenty feet to reach
him.
“Too short!”
“Barlow will be burnt up before they can reach him!”
“Stand the ladder on the piazza roof!” shouted Gus Romer.
This seemed good advice, and the volunteer firemen worked like Trojans
to move the heavy ladder around.
But all this took time, and just as they were preparing to hoist the
ladder onto the piazza, the wind swept around and the flames shot out
of the windows directly across the piazza roof.
“Too late!” groaned Gus Romer. “The roof will be burnt away in five
minutes more.”
The veering around of the wind was almost fatal to Larry and the girl
he was trying to rescue. It brought the heavy smoke down upon the pair,
and the living embers followed.
The girl aroused herself with a start.
“Whe—where are we?” she faltered.
“On the roof.”
“Safe?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh, see the flames are coming this way!” she shrieked.
She was right, the flames were less than fifty feet away, coming up
over the rear side of the hotel. The fire was also beneath them, and
the roof was so hot it began to scorch the soles of their shoes.
Meanwhile there was a loud shouting down in the road, and looking over
the roof’s edge, Larry beheld Romer and the others spreading out a huge
net with which the fire department had but lately provided itself.
“Good!” he yelled. “See that you hold it tight!”
“What is it?” queried the girl, trembling so that she could scarcely
frame the words.
“They are spreading a net.”
“A net?”
“Yes. Come, we will have to jump.”
“To jump?” She was half dazed by her peril.
“Yes, into the net. Come.”
“But it is such an awful distance!”
“I know it; but it’s our only hope now. The stairs are burnt away, and
they cannot reach us with a ladder. Give me your hand.”
She held out her hand and looked at him beseechingly. Then she dropped
like a lump of lead at his feet, overcome once more.
Losing no time, he caught her up in his arms. The wind was blowing
fiercely, and the great clouds of smoke and flame eddied all around
them. With his burden he staggered to the edge of the roof and looked
down. Yes, it was a long distance—a good fifty or sixty feet.
“If we miss the net, or it breaks, we’ll be goners!” he muttered. “But
it’s the only thing to do.” He leaned down as far as he could: “Are you
ready below there?” he yelled.
[Illustration: “Larry Caught the Unconscious Girl to His Breast, and
Made the Fearful Leap Toward the Net Stretched Far Below”]
“Yes,” was the answer which reached him through the roaring and
crackling of the flames.
“All right; I’m coming.”
Then, just as the flames seemed fairly to encircle him, Larry caught
the unconscious girl to his breast, and made the fearful leap toward
the net stretched far below.
CHAPTER V.
LARRY MAKES A FRIEND.
There was a cry from a thousand throats as Larry Barlow launched
himself and his fair burden forth from the roof of the burning hotel.
The smoke and flames swirled all around the brave young man and the
unconscious girl, so that for the instant they were lost to view.
Those at the net, stretched below, stood firm, although more than one
man wished that the terrible ordeal was over. Should Larry and the girl
come down on the head of one of the net holders there might be three
deaths instead of two.
Down, down, and still down shot the pair with what seemed the rapidity
of lightning. Then with a swish Larry’s feet struck the net and up
he bounced like a rubber ball, once, twice, three times, and then he
remained quiet for a moment.
“Saved!”
A thousand throats yelled out the welcome word, and it was as if the
crowd was going mad with joy. Hearts that had stopped beating jumped
madly, cheer after cheer went up.
“Hurrah for Larry Barlow! Hurrah for the young fireman!”
Then willing hands assisted him to the roadway, while others took the
unconscious girl in charge and conducted her to a neighboring cottage.
“Larry, you’re a wonder!” cried Gus Romer, enthusiastically. “That was
the greatest leap I ever witnessed.”
“It was great!” put in another man. “I wouldn’t have taken it for a
thousand dollars.”
“Oh rats! It wasn’t much to jump into the net. He knew it was perfectly
safe.”
This remark came from Lank Possy, who stood in the crowd. He was
envious of the praise bestowed upon our hero.
“Lank Possy, you shut your mouth!” cried Romer, angrily. “You wouldn’t
dare to jump half the distance, and you know it. Why, when the shop
hands were doing stunts you didn’t dare to drop from the roof of the
drying-room to the pile of shavings in the yard.”
“That’s right, he didn’t!” laughed another standing near. “He’s nothing
but a wind-bag. You mustn’t mind him.”
“Am I a wind-bag? You’ll see!” growled Lank Possy. “I’ll get square
with the lot of you some day. I’ll——”
“Shut up!” roared one big man, and made a move for the bully, at which
he ran for his life. But he did not escape thus easily, for as he
rounded a corner of the burning building some of the firemen saw him
and turned the hose on him, drenching him to the skin.
The whole fire department was now working as never before, and with
the L of the hotel down, the conflagration was gradually gotten under
control. But the loss was great, even though the property was covered
by a heavy insurance.
As soon as he felt stronger, Larry made his way to the cottage to which
the girl had been taken. She was sitting up in an easy chair and doing
as well as could be expected.
“I owe you my life!” she cried, warmly, as she grasped his hand. “Mr.
Barlow, I shall never forget you!”
“I only did my duty as fireman,” he answered, with something of a blush.
“You risked your life to save mine.”
“Well, we have to take risks sometimes.”
“You are a hero, sir,” put in the gentleman Larry had met in the hotel
hallway. “I believe they told me your name is Lawrence Barlow.”
“Yes, sir; although my friends all call me Larry.”
“My name is Richard Vern, and this is my daughter Mary. I am more than
glad to know you. Rest assured that I shall reward you well for your
bravery.”
“I want no reward, Mr. Vern,” answered our hero, earnestly. “I simply
did my duty and that’s the end of it.”
“But it is not the end of it so far as I am concerned, my young friend.
I am rich and can well afford the reward I shall give you.”
At this Larry shook his head, but Richard Vern was not to be turned
aside. He had made up his mind to give Larry five hundred dollars.
“There is one thing I can’t understand,” went on Larry, after a pause.
“Why was that door to the hotel room locked?”
“This is the mystery of the case,” answered Richard Vern. “I did not
lock the door, nor did my daughter.”
“There was no key on the outside of the door.”
“Nor none inside,” put in Mary Vern.
“Perhaps a maid locked the door by accident,” suggested Larry.
“It may be,” answered Richard Vern. “I went out leaving Mary asleep on
the couch. She had been suffering with a headache and I did not wish
to disturb her. I was in the town when the fire broke out and as I
ran back to the hotel at full speed I was all out of wind when I got
upstairs. Then the smoke quite overcame me.”
An hour later Larry went home, meeting his sister on the way. Kate,
too, had heard of his bravery and she fairly hugged her big brother.
“Larry, a regular fireman couldn’t have done better,” she said.
“I wish I was a regular fireman,” answered Larry.
Mr. Vern had asked Larry to call upon him at another hotel in the town
the afternoon following, at three o’clock. Having nothing to do our
hero kept the appointment promptly.
To his surprise Mary Vern met him alone.
“Troubles never come singly,” said the beautiful girl, as she greeted
him in the parlor. “Papa got a cablegram this morning which called him
to London without delay. He had to take the ten o’clock train so as to
catch the steamer which sailed from New York at noon. He left a letter
for you.”
Larry took the letter and read it. It ran as follows:
“My dear young friend:—I am called to London quite unexpectedly. I
shall probably have to remain in England for a month or more. But I
shall not forget you, and upon my return shall reward you well for
your bravery in saving Mary’s life. I understand that you are out
of employment and I beg of you to accept the inclosed as a small
portion of what I think is honestly coming to you.
“Somebody last night told me that you had spoken of trying to get
into the New York City Fire Department. The life of a city fireman
is full of work and peril, but if you insist upon entering let this
letter serve as an introduction to Mr. Paul Kessenger, who is one
of the Fire Commissioners. Tell him that it is my wish that he
will give you an opening if he has it in his power to confer the
favor.
“Very truly yours,
“RICHARD VERN.”
In a smaller envelope in the letter was tucked away a folded-up
fifty-dollar bill.
Larry’s face flushed with pleasure as he read the letter. Here was an
introduction to one of the New York City Fire Commissioners. Surely
that would gain him the opening for which he was seeking.
“Your father is very kind to me,” he said to Mary Vern. “I did not
expect this of him.”
“He felt that he ought to do more—and he will do more when he gets
back, Mr. Barlow.”
“He has done more than enough. The recommendation is all I wish. I
cannot accept the money.”
“But you must accept it.”
“No, I don’t save lives for money.”
At this the girl colored up.
“Then you are—are angry at the offer!” she faltered.
“Oh, no, but—but—I don’t want money for saving you.”
He handed back the little envelope with the fifty-dollar bill and she
did not refuse it.
“As you will,” she murmured. “But I shall never forget you, Mr.
Barlow—never!”
They then shook hands and parted.
CHAPTER VI.
OFF FOR NEW YORK CITY.
“Kate, I’m going to be a New York fireman, after all!”
“How do you know, Larry?”
“Mr. Vern has given me a recommendation to Fire Commissioner Paul
Kessenger.”
“But that doesn’t make the place certain.”
“Doesn’t it? Well, if a Commissioner can’t get a fellow a job, who can?”
“The department may be full.”
“Well, of course, I’ll have to wait my turn—after I have passed the
examination and gone through the school of instruction.”
“Why, Larry, must you go to school?”
“That’s what they call it. Somewhere uptown in New York City they have
what they call a school of instruction for would-be firemen. Everybody
who joins the department has to go to the school for about three
months. Then they hold another examination, and if you pass you are
listed for a regular job as soon as there is an opening.”
“I see. I wonder what they do at the school?”
“Oh, they learn all sorts of things—how to tackle this fire or that,
how to lay down hose and take it up, how to use the regular and the
scaling ladders, how to jump from one building to another, how to carry
hose up a ladder, how to jump out of a sound sleep into your clothes
before you are fully awake, how to leap into nets——”
“Well, they can’t beat you at leaping into a net,” interposed Kate.
“I don’t think they can, come to think of it. But that isn’t all they
learn. They learn how to swing from window to window outside, and how
to form a human bridge by one man taking hold of the other’s ankles,
and how to care for folks who have been overcome with smoke until the
ambulance comes, and how to fight fires that are in cellars or at the
top of tall office buildings, and how to tackle a blaze where there is
gas or oil or something that is liable to explode, and——”
“Mercy on me, Larry, how you do go on! I declare, you’ve got the whole
thing on your finger tips already!”
“Why, Kate, I haven’t begun to learn yet. Ordinary folks haven’t any
idea what a fireman has to know and what he’s expected to do.”
“Well, if I know anything, a fireman has to face more perils than a
soldier.”
“He does, after a fashion—for he’s at it all the time. There isn’t an
hour of the day or night that he isn’t on duty, excepting when he has
his regular day off.”
“Do they have many days off?”
“No, only a few.”
The matter was talked over for some time and Larry decided to go down
to the city on the following Monday morning.
“If I get the job, of course we’ll have to move to New York,” he said.
“You won’t want to stay here alone.”
“No Larry, I’ll go where you go.”
The following Monday noon found our hero in the great metropolis. He
had previously ascertained where he could find the Fire Commissioner
and he called on the gentleman immediately after dinner.
Mr. Kessenger was a whole-souled man, who treated Larry very politely.
“Yes, I know Mr. Vern well,” he said. “We were once stockholders in the
same lumber company.”
Then he read the letter which our hero had brought along.
“So you wish to join the fire department?”
“I do, sir.”
“It is a life full of peril.”
“I know that.”
“Men have sometimes to take big risks.”
Larry nodded.
“I’ll not be afraid.”
“Have you had any experience?”
“A little sir.”
“I was reading of a young fellow the other day, who came from some town
up the river, who did a very brave thing. He would make just such a
fireman as our department is after.”
“What did the fellow do?” asked Larry, with a quiet smile.
“It was at the burning of a large hotel. He was acting as a volunteer
fireman and he saved a young lady’s life by leaping with her from the
roof into a net.”
“Did you read the article very closely, Mr. Kessenger?”
“Why, no; I didn’t have time. Why?”
“Because if you had you would know that the young man was myself and
the young lady who was saved was Mr. Vern’s daughter.”
“Bless my soul, you don’t tell me! Here wait a minute—I have the paper
still.” The Fire Commissioner began to fumble over a pile of papers
in the corner. “Here is the issue, and, yes, here it is. Sure enough,
Lawrence Barlow. Why didn’t you say so before?” And now he wrung
Larry’s hand warmly.
“I wanted to come into the department solely on my merits, Mr.
Kessenger. I don’t believe much in pulls, although I would like you to
give me just a show to get in.”
“You are certainly as modest as you appear to be brave, Barlow. I will
do what I can for you.”
“And when may I expect to hear from you?”
“Let me see, this is Monday. By Wednesday night at the latest.”
“Thank you.”
There were now others waiting to see the Commissioner, so Larry did not
take up any more of his valuable time.
As our hero stepped into the street he felt as though he was walking on
air.
“I know I’ll get in,” he murmured to himself. “And if I do, I’ll do my
best to get to be a captain and maybe the chief.”
Not having anything special to do, Larry decided to devote the
remainder of the day to sight-seeing.
He resolved to go up in the neighborhood where he had seen the two men
who had been talking about his father’s patent elevator lift.
“Who knows but what I may run across them?” he thought. “And if I do
I’ll take precious good care that they don’t get out of sight again in
such a hurry.”
As he walked along under the elevated railroad tracks his attention was
attracted to a copy of one of the big pictorial weeklies which had just
been issued and which a news stand keeper was in the act of spreading
out and tacking up on a bulletin board.
Liking pictures as well as anybody, Larry stepped up to the board and
began to look at them.
Suddenly he started back in surprise. There was a photograph of the
hotel fire with himself in the act of leaping from the roof with Mary
Vern in his arms!
An amateur photographer stopping at the hotel had taken a large
snap-shot of the affair and had sold it to the publishers of the weekly
for a good round sum.
“Well, I never!” gasped Larry, and read the lines under the picture.
They are: “Brave deed of Lawrence Barlow of Ferryville, N. Y. He saves
the life of Mary Vern by leaping from the roof into a net at the
burning of the Riverside Hotel. See page 198.”
And on page 198 was a full account of the fire, written in most glowing
terms and calling him a hero and more.
“Mighty interested in the paper, ain’t you?” said the stand keeper, as
he saw Larry reading all he could of it.
“I ought to be interested,” replied the youth. “There’s a picture of
myself.”
“By Jinks, so it is! Say, I guess you want a paper, don’t you?”
“I certainly do;” and Larry bought it on the spot.
“You ought to be a regular fireman,” went on the news stand keeper.
“I’m going to be—if I can get into the department,” said our hero, and
then he walked off.
With the paper tucked away in his pocket he continued his rambles to
the vicinity of the station where the two men had left the elevated
train. The sight of the city interested him greatly and he often paused
to note what was going on.
Suddenly a little newsboy ran into him full tilt, pitching sideways
into the gutter and spilling his stock of evening papers in all
directions. The little chap had hardly gone down when a big newsboy
lumbered up and collared him.
“Now I’ve got yer!” he cried, and began to cuff the little fellow right
and left.
“Lemme go, Bill Buck!” howled the urchin. “Lemme go! I didn’t do
anything to you!”
“Didn’t yer, dough? Didn’t I tell yer ter keep away from Rafferty’s
corner? Dat’s my beat, dat is!” and again the big boy began hammering
the little lad.
“The corner is public property. I’ve got as much right to sell there as
you have,” howled the little chap, and then he tried to twist himself
free, but the big boy held him tight and dragged him into a nearby
alley, intending to give him a worse drubbing than ever.
Before he could proceed Larry had him by the collar and was hauling him
back.
“Let the little fellow alone, you big brute!” he said sternly. “Let him
alone, or else you’ll have to settle with me!”
CHAPTER VII.
THE STRANGERS AGAIN.
The big newsboy was taken completely by surprise. Never before had
any one interfered when he was “having it out” with one of the little
fellows.
For several blocks around Bill Buck was known as the king among the
boys who sold papers, and anything that he said “went,” as the newsboys
expressed it.
He glared at Larry savagely.
“Wot’s eatin’ yer!” he snarled. “Dis ain’t your affair. Let me alone.”
“I demand that you leave this little fellow alone,” returned Larry,
quietly but firmly.
“He’s been sellin’ papers on my corner.”
“Do you own the corner?”
“No, but——”
“Then he has as much right to sell there as you.”
“If he sells dere ag’in I’ll break his head!”
“You won’t touch him.”
“Won’t I dough?”
“If you do you’ll have to settle with me.” Larry turned to the little
chap. “What is your name?”
“Willie Morrison,” was the answer. “Say, mister, you’re awful good, you
are!”
“Stop yer jaw, Willie!” blazed out Bill Buck.
“You stop!” ordered Larry. “If you say another word I’ll thrash you
myself.”
“Maybe yer can’t do it,” sneered the big newsboy.
“There is no maybe about it, you impudent loafer. How do you like that?”
And without warning Larry raised the big brute off his feet with one
hand and shook him until his teeth rattled.
“Let up! Oh, me neck!” roared Bill Buck. “Let up! Me head’s coming off!”
“Will you behave yourself if I let you go?”
“Yes, yes!”
“All right, then, see that you do. And mind, if you touch Willie
Morrison again you’ll have a fresh score to settle with me, and I won’t
be as easy as I was this time.”
So saying Larry cast the bully from him. Bill Buck lost no time in
sneaking from the alley and out of sight.
In the meantime Willie Morrison had run to pick up his papers. Now he
came back with a smiling face and his stock under his arm.
“Say, you’re all right, you are!” he said, admiringly. “You give him a
lesson, you did!”
“Well, I hope he doesn’t forget it in a hurry,” said Larry. “If he hits
you again you just tell me.”
“But where will I see you?”
“I’ll be around here once in a while after this. I’m from out of the
city, but I expect to move here shortly. I won’t forget you.”
“Thank you, Mr.——”
“I’m plain Larry Barlow, Willie. That’s an easy name to remember.”
“I won’t forget, Mr. Barlow. Say, but you’ve got a strong arm!”
“I’m a machinist by trade and I’m used to handling big pieces of
machinery. But I expect to get into the fire department here.”
At this announcement Willie Morrison’s face fell.
“My father used to be a fireman,” he said, in a lower voice.
“Used to be? Is he out of the department now?”
“He got killed up to a big fire near Central Park, two years ago. A
brick wall fell in on him and two other men.”
“That’s too bad. Then your mother is a widow?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you are helping to support her?”
“Yes, sir. She sews and I sell papers. We don’t make much, but it gives
us our eating and a roof over our heads.”
“But didn’t she get a pension?”
“She did, but some man got her to put the money in some company, and
now she ain’t got only what comes in, and that ain’t much.”
“That’s too bad. Where do you live?”
“Over on Second Avenue,” and the little newsboy mentioned the number.
“I’ll remember that, and maybe when I and my sister have come to live
in New York we’ll call on you.”
“Mother will be glad to know you. She feels kind of lonely, not knowing
many people here. We came from Rochester.”
“Well, you go on and sell your papers. I’ll—ha! the very man I want to
see!”
Larry broke off short.
He had caught sight of two men hurrying along the street on the
opposite side to the alley.
“Want to see those men?” queried Willie.
“Yes, I want to see them very much. Do you know them?”
“I know of ’em—or at least I know of the fellow in the checked suit.
He’s a regular rounder from the Bowery named Andy Sluggers, although
those that know him call him Check Sluggers, on account of the checks
he wears.”
“Check Sluggers—I’ll remember that. Do you know the other man’s name?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m off now, for I want to know where they go and what their
business is. They know something of a patent my father owned.”
So speaking our hero walked away and hurried after the strangers, who
were now turning into a side street leading in the direction of the
East River.
The two men walked on for several blocks and then entered a tenement
house of the better class. On one side of the tenement was an alleyway
leading to a large factory in the rear.
Larry paused in front of the house and when a girl came toward him
skipping with a rope, he stopped her and asked her who lived in the
dwelling.
“Oh, half a dozen families live there,” said the girl.
“Do the Sluggers live there?”
“Yes, on the top floor, in the back, next to the factory.”
“And who else?”
“The Caseys live on the next floor, and the Browns and the Hardings on
the bottom floor. The top floor in front is empty—the folks moved out
last week on account of a row with the Sluggers.
“How many of the Sluggers are there?”
“Only Check Sluggers and his wife, Ann. Ann gets drunk sometimes and
that always makes trouble.”
“I thought I saw Check Sluggers going in there just now. Do you know
the gentleman who was with him?”
“His name is Martin Pollox. I don’t know anything more about him
excepting that he sometimes goes in the factory in the rear,” said the
girl.
She skipped off and after a moment’s hesitation Larry entered the
tenement and made his way up the dark and narrow stairs to the top
floor.
As the girl had said, the front rooms on this floor were vacant and
he soon found an apartment which was next to the one occupied by the
Sluggers.
There was a door between, which was nailed up, but by putting his ear
to the wood, which was thin, he easily made out what was being said on
the other side.
Check Sluggers and Martin Pollox were in the room alone and in earnest
conversation.
“I want my money, that’s what I want,” Check Sluggers was saying. “I’ve
waited till I’m sick of waiting, Pollox.”
“I am sorry, but I must get some cash out of the patent first,”
answered Martin Pollox. “I was hoping to get the money two days ago,
but my man has gone away on business.”
“Oh, that’s an old yarn.”
“It’s the truth, Check. The man was going to put up twenty thousand
dollars and form a brand-new company to put the elevator lift on the
market.”
“Where has he gone to?”
“To England.”
“I’ll believe the yarn if you’ll tell me the man’s name.”
“His name is Richard Vern,” was Martin Pollox’s ready answer.
CHAPTER VIII.
SOMETHING OF A MYSTERY.
It must be confessed that Larry was startled over what he heard.
Was it possible that kind-hearted Richard Vern was in league with these
men, whose very looks betokened them to be rascals?
“It can’t be possible!” he muttered. “And yet, why would this villain
drag his name into the talk if there wasn’t something in it?”
“Richard Vern?” repeated Check Sluggers. “I don’t know him.”
“He is a very rich man and I know him very well,” answered Martin
Pollox. “Fact is, his wife and my former wife were related. He’s alone
in the world, but for one child, a girl of fourteen, and if I can
handle him rightly I’ll make a big thing of this.”
“Then there ain’t no money for me now?” grunted Check Sluggers, who
thought more of immediate benefits than of the future, no matter how
rosy looking.
“I’ll give you twenty dollars, Check—as an evidence of good faith.”
The money was passed over, and then the pair began a long talk over
some business affairs which our hero did not understand. It was
evident, however, that Martin Pollox was connected with several
manufacturing companies, all of which, however, were more or less in
financial difficulties. More than that, it came out that he owned
several patents on elevator connections, steam hoists and extension
ladders.
“Gracious, I wouldn’t want such a rascal to get hold of my new
extension ladder,” mused our hero. “He’d cheat me out of every cent
that was coming to me, that’s certain.”
Half an hour later Ann Sluggers came in, much the worse for liquor, and
began to abuse her husband roundly.
At once Martin Pollox started to go.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Check,” he said.
“All right,” answered Sluggers, and then turned to quiet his wife.
As soon as Martin Pollox started to leave, Larry prepared to follow the
man.
He had nothing else to do, and he did not feel like going to the hotel
at which he had put up so early, for it was not yet dark.
“Perhaps I’ll gain another clew concerning father’s invention,” he told
himself.
Down in the street there was now a good-sized crowd, for people were
beginning to come home from work.
In this crowd he had all he could do to keep in sight of Martin Pollox,
and in fear of losing him kept fairly close to his man.
But at a corner Martin Pollox hopped aboard a swiftly moving surface
car and in a twinkle was beyond our hero’s reach. Larry ran after the
car for a block, and then had to give it up.
“Pshaw! I wouldn’t make any kind of a detective,” Larry told himself.
“How easily he got away from me!”
After walking on for several blocks our hero came to an engine house
in front of which several of the firemen were sitting, in easy-chairs
leaned up against the building.
Anxious to gain a little more information about the fire department,
our hero lounged up and began a conversation with one of the firemen,
who proved to be a nice chap, named Oscar Harwell.
While at the engine house the alarm rang.
“Why don’t you start out?” questioned Larry.
“It isn’t in our district. We won’t go unless we get a second alarm.”
“Where is it?”
“Somewhere near the corner of Third Avenue and Canal Street.”
As there was an elevated railroad handy, Larry resolved to board the
cars and go up to Canal Street.
“I want to see all I can of how the department works,” he said to Oscar
Harwell.
He was soon on the train, and the ride to Canal Street took but a few
minutes.
From the station platform he could see the glare of the fire, which was
confined to a big warehouse located some distance down the street.
At the rear of the warehouse was a lane running to another street, and
by going around to this lane Larry managed to get quite close to the
fire.
“It’s going to be a corker!” he said to himself, and he was right. The
warehouse was filled with goods which were highly combustible, and the
flames roared and crackled in a manner calculated to make those living
near tremble.
“I wish I was one of the department men,” said our hero to one of the
firemen. “I love this sort of work.”
“Well, I don’t,” was the crusty answer. “I’ve been to seven fires in
fourteen hours and I’m played out.”
“Can’t I take your place?”
“Not much. If you did and they found it out, they’d discharge me in
short order.”
“They are awfully strict.”
“They have to be. If they weren’t some of the men would ride over
everything.”
But though Larry could not help to fight the fire, he was allowed to
assist at removing the goods from a warehouse adjoining that which was
being consumed.
This was hard and hot work and it was not long before he was in a
dripping perspiration.
“Good for you, young man!” said one of the owners of the warehouse.
“Keep it up and I’ll pay you well for this night’s work. This stock is
all sold and must be saved if we can possibly accomplish it.”
“I’ll do my best for you,” answered Larry.
The contents of the warehouse were of a miscellaneous order. Fully a
score of men were at work removing boxes, barrels and long, flat cases,
the latter containing glass.
In the meantime the roof of the structure began to take fire and then
the firemen poured on the water, which speedily soaked down from floor
to floor.
The wetting of the floor caused more than one mishap.
One was very laughable. Two Irishmen were carrying a case of glass down
from the second loft when of a sudden one of the helpers slipped.
Down went the case of glass to the lower floor, where it broke open,
sending the flying glass in all directions.
Then on to the broken glass fell the biggest of the Irishmen.
The yell that he let out would have done credit to a wild Indian.
“Oh, be the powers!” he spluttered. “Oi’m all cut up, so Oi am!
Somebody pick me up an’ lind me a book of courtplasther!”
Larry ran to his assistance and hauled him up as speedily as possible.
“That was a nasty fall,” he remarked.
“The fall was nothin’,” growled the Irishman. “It was the sudden
sthoppage that did the business. An’ on the glass, too, bad cess to
whatever med me shlip!” And then the Irishman limped off, followed
by his companion. Both had to go to the nearest drug store to have
their many wounds patched up with plaster. But the proprietor of the
warehouse did not forget them and a two-dollar bill to each made the
Irishmen think the affair not such a bad one, after all.
The task of removing the goods continued, although it was felt that all
would soon have to leave the building, for the fire was gaining speedy
headway on the roof.
Here, unknown to many, and totally forgotten by the watchman of the
place and also the owner, was a huge tank of water, set there to flood
the warehouse in case of fire.
In intense excitement many lose their heads completely, and it was not
such a great matter of wonder that the tank was forgotten.
Swiftly the fire burned its way to the tank and began to lick around
the supports of that huge vat, which held hundreds and hundreds of
gallons of water.
Larry was on the lower floor of the warehouse, not far from a staircase
leading into the cellar, when from overhead there came a loud report,
followed by a strange crashing.
The huge tank had burst, and in a twinkle the hundreds of gallons of
water came rushing down one stairs after another with the swiftness of
a miniature Niagara.
“Run for your lives!” was the cry. “The building is going to be
flooded!”
At once everybody took to his heels, dropping whatever he was carrying.
Our hero went with the rest, but he was a good distance from the doors
and before he could reach a place of safety the water was on him.
Up it leaped to his ankles, his knees and then his waist, and in a
twinkle he was swept off his feet as by a roaring mountain torrent and
carried toward the cellar stairway.
He tried to save himself by clutching at the walls and the stairs
themselves, but all in vain. More water came on top of him, and in a
second more he passed into utter darkness into the cellar.
Then followed a bumping and thumping of boxes and packing cases on the
stairs, choking up the entrance completely.
Waist deep in water he ran from one end of the cellar to the other.
There was another opening to the street, but this was likewise choked
up with boxes and barrels.
His escape was cut off completely, and now the water was rising swiftly
to the very flooring above his head!
CHAPTER IX.
LIKE A RAT IN A TRAP.
“It looks as if I was to be drowned like a rat in a trap!”
Such was the agonizing thought which rushed through Larry Barlow’s mind
as he tried vainly to find some way out of the flooded warehouse cellar.
From outside came the crackling of the flames and the shrill tooting
of the fire engines; from closer came the crackling of timbers and the
rushing of water as it continued to come into the cellar.
He could no longer stand on the cellar flooring, and had to swim around
until his feet touched the top of a heavy packing case which had not
shifted.
Swiftly the water kept rising until it was within ten inches of the
flooring overhead.
He had to crowd his mouth and nose upward to get any breath at all,
and even the little air here was tainted with smoke, which was growing
thicker each instant.
He thought of home and of his sister Kate, and then a vision of
beautiful Mary Vern floated over his mind. Was he to die and leave his
loved ones behind?
“This is playing the fireman with a vengeance,” he groaned. “Not a man
in the department could get into a tighter fix than this.”
He prayed silently for Divine help, and the prayer had scarcely passed
than he noticed that the water in the cellar was gradually going down.
A barrel standing over a sewer trap had shifted, and the water was
rushing as rapidly as possible into the street sewer.
But little water now came down from above, being only that pumped onto
the fire by the engines, and inside of ten minutes the cellar was more
than half empty.
But the smoke was suffocating, and he would have given all he was worth
for one breath of pure, fresh air.
Presently a chopping of axes reached his ear, coming from the end of
the cellar nearest the street.
The firemen were trying to force their way into the cellar, having
learned that somebody had been swept into the place by the flood from
the bursted water tank.
Eagerly Larry got as close as possible to the sounds.
“Help! help!” he yelled, with all the strength of his lungs. “Help! I
am in the cellar!”
“I hear him calling!” shouted one of the axmen. “He’s alive yet, boys!”
“Then we must get him out!” shouted back the captain in charge of the
work. “But keep an eye overhead, boys; that front wall don’t look any
too safe.”
He was right about the wall, which stood directly over the cellar
entrance. The fire had eaten down to the second story, and everything
above this was now loose and shaky.
Larry had no light, nor any means of making one, and so had to tumble
around in the dark. He bumped up against packing cases and floating
barrels, and one contact almost stunned him.
“I must keep my wits about me!” he gasped. “If I don’t I’ll be a dead
one when they fish me out,” and then he continued to cry for aid.
The ringing of axe blows on the cellar doors was now steady, and
presently one board after another gave way, letting into the dark hole
a murky stream of reddish yellow light.
“Thank Heaven!” cried Larry, and he made toward the opening with all
possible speed.
“Where are you?” called out one of the firemen.
“Here I am,” answered our hero, and caught hold of the cellar door.
Soon he was crawling through the ragged opening which had been made.
“Back! All of you, back!” was the sudden cry. “The wall is coming down!”
“Quick!” yelled one of the firemen to Larry. “Quick or it will be too
late!”
He caught hold of our hero’s arm and fairly yanked him through the
opening.
The great wall overhead was cracking loudly, as bricks and stones began
to give way. As Larry and the fireman leaped to the pavement the great
mass of bricks and mortar began to bend outward.
“Run!” screamed the fireman, and hand in hand the pair made for the end
of the block, for they knew that the wall would fill the street from
side to side.
Crash! Down came the wall with a roar and a shock that shook the land
for blocks around.
Bricks, stone, glass and iron girders flew in all directions, and the
dust and smoke was so thick that for the moment absolutely nothing
could be seen.
“They are lost!” was the cry, but even while it was being uttered,
Larry and the fireman leaped up from an end of the wreckage and hurried
to a place of greater safety.
For some minutes neither could speak, for each was out of breath and
each had been sorely hit by flying fragments.
“You are lucky, Harwell,” said one of the fire captains, as he rushed
up. “And the young fellow is lucky, too.”
“That’s so, captain,” answered Oscar Harwell, and now for the first
time Larry noticed his rescuer was the fireman he had met at the engine
house some time ago.
“You!” he cried. “I thought you told me you didn’t come up here.”
“We got an extra alarm,” answered Oscar Harwell. “It came in right
after you left.”
“I owe you a good deal for saving me.”
“Thanks, but I only did my duty,” returned Harwell. “How do you feel?”
“Shaky in the legs, but otherwise all right.”
“I see you are wet to the neck. You must have had a dandy time in that
cellar.”
“I was nearly drowned,” said Larry, with a shudder.
“You had better go home and change your clothing.”
“I am stopping at a hotel. However, I’ll go there and go to bed, and my
clothing can dry while I am sleeping.”
The owner of the warehouse now came around. He was happy to learn that
Larry had escaped, and he insisted on pressing a ten dollar bill into
our hero’s hand.
“You earned every cent of it,” he said. “I would not have rested easily
had a life been lost at my warehouse.”
The fire department was now working as never before to put the
conflagration out, and despite his wet clothing Larry remained around
for nearly half an hour watching the proceedings.
The intense heat helped to dry him and prevented him from taking cold.
“Gracious, how they do work!” he said to himself. “New York firemen are
about as brave as any on the face of this earth.”
And in saying that Larry told nothing but the plain truth.
CHAPTER X.
LARRY JOINS THE NEW YORK FIRE DEPARTMENT.
On Wednesday morning Larry received a letter from the fire commissioner
telling him to call that afternoon at three o’clock.
As usual, our hero was promptly on time.
“I will do what I can for you, Barlow,” said Mr. Kessenger. “But a good
deal of what comes will depend upon yourself. To tell the truth you are
rather young for the department.”
“I will be twenty soon.”
“You must get the recommendation of several reliable men who know you.”
“I can get them, sir. I thought of that before.”
“Then, first of all, you must stand the examination physically and
mentally.”
“I am willing to go through all that is necessary.”
“I do not think you will fail physically,” smiled Paul Kessenger,
as he looked at our hero’s sturdy frame. “But about the school
examination——”
“I have a fair grammar school education, sir.”
“I am glad to hear that. Then you must come for examination next
week—Tuesday at ten o’clock.”
“I’ll be on hand, sir.”
“I hope you’ll pass, for I have taken an interest in you. And, by the
way, did you have a relative in the department a few years ago?” went
on the commissioner, curiously.
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”
“Your face looks familiar to me—and your name doesn’t seem to be
strange, either. It is odd.”
“Perhaps you once met my father,” answered Larry quickly. “He came to
New York several years ago with a newly invented elevator lift. But he
disappeared and his invention was either lost or stolen.”
“Oh, yes; I remember the case now perfectly. So he was your father? Did
you ever hear from him?”
“No, sir.”
“It was a sad case, indeed. I remember the invention. I thought it a
fine thing at the time.”
“Do you remember the details of his invention?”
“I do not—although I used to be in the elevator business myself, as
perhaps you know.”
“Yes, that is why I spoke of the elevator lift. You see I am something
of an inventor myself, and I have been trying my spare time to
reproduce his invention. But one part bothers me, and I can’t get it.”
After a few words more Larry left the commissioner’s office. Some of my
readers may think it strange that he did not mention his new extension
ladder when he had such a good chance to introduce the subject, but he
was resolved to say nothing on the point until he had consulted with a
reliable patent agent and obtained his patent papers.
“I’ll make sure that there is no trip up in this,” he told himself. “If
the invention is worth anything I want my full share.”
Promptly at the time appointed Larry went to be examined. He found a
dozen or more other applicants on hand, including a young fellow from
Harlem who was George Harwell, a cousin to Oscar Harwell.
“I am glad to know you,” said Larry to George Harwell. “Your cousin
Oscar did me a great service not long ago,” and he told of the
warehouse affair.
“Oscar is as brave as they make them,” returned George Harwell. “I
hope, if I get in, that I make as good a record as he is making.”
The examination proved to be quite easy for Larry, who had let himself
believe he would be put on his mettle. The physical examination was
also easily passed.
“You’re a good one,” said the doctor, as he slapped Larry on the
ribs. “I wish they were all as healthy.” And he passed on to the next
applicant.
After this came a long wait, until Larry could get into the School of
Instructions, as it is termed, where he was to learn to do all the
things he had mentioned to Kate, and a lot more besides.
“I don’t know how I am to live in the meantime,” he thought, when told
that he would have to serve at the school for about three months, but
then came the welcome news that embryo firemen were paid even when at
the school, the salary being about sixty-five dollars per month.
At once he wrote to Kate to break up housekeeping in Ferryville and
sell off such things as she did not wish to keep; and added that he
would be up to help move on the following Saturday.
Coming to New York would necessitate finding apartments, and while
Larry was hunting around for a suitable future home for his sister, he
again ran across little Willie Morrison, just at the time that big
Bill Buck was once more bullying him.
“I told yer to keep away from de corner!” cried Bill Buck, savagely,
and was on the point of hitting Willie, when our hero came up, caught
him by the neck and landed him up against the elevated road steps with
a force that made his bones crack.
“I told you before to let Willie alone,” said Larry. “Now, are you
going to mind, or are you going to take a good licking?”
“Oh, say, don’t hit me!” howled Bill Buck. “I didn’t mean nuthin’. I
wasn’t goin’ ter hit Willie!” and off he ran as fast as his long legs
would carry him.
“Larry Barlow!” ejaculated the little newsboy, joyfully. “Say, ain’t I
glad you came!” and he almost hugged our hero.
“How are you making out, Willie?”
“Pretty fair—made seventy-two cents since this morning.”
“Does Bill Buck bother you much?”
“Not as much as he did. He’s afraid you’ll be around.”
“Perhaps he’ll be more afraid after this.”
“Hope he is.”
So the talk ran on, until Willie asked what had brought Larry to the
neighborhood.
“Maybe you’re looking for them men again?” he suggested.
“Not now, Willie. I am looking for a place to live.”
“Then you’re going to move to New York?”
“Yes. Do you know of any nice place around here that I can rent?”
“There’s a flat to rent in the house mother and I live in; but maybe it
won’t be grand enough for you.”
“I don’t want a grand place. But I want something bright and clean.”
“It’s got good light, and all the folks in the building are clean. The
agent won’t have any others.”
“Show me the place, Willie.”
The little newsboy was more than willing to do Larry a favor, and they
were soon at the house. The flat was one of four rooms, all light, and,
as Willie had said, very clean.
Mrs. Morrison proved to be a genteel personage, and Larry felt certain
Kate would like her.
“I’ll hire this flat, if I can,” he said, and hurried off.
“If I get it,” he thought, “Kate will have a friend from the start, and
that will make it less lonely for her.”
The flat was hired readily and then Larry sat down and penned Kate a
letter telling what had been done.
In the meantime, Willie had gone off to get some extras. As Larry went
to post the letter, he met the newsboy at the corner.
“Here give me a newspaper,” said our hero, as he saw the big headline:
“Fearful Railroad Disaster in England.”
“No pay from you, Larry Barlow,” said the little fellow, as he handed
over the paper.
But Larry slipped the cent in his pocket. Then he turned to read the
particulars of the disaster.
A great shock awaited him. The express train running from Liverpool to
London had been wrecked in a collision with a goods, or freight train,
and half a dozen people had been killed.
Those who had lost their lives were all Americans lately landed at
Liverpool, and among the list of dead was the name of Richard Vern.
CHAPTER XI.
SAD NEWS FOR MARY VERN.
“Dead!” Larry uttered the word mechanically as he stared at the printed
lines before him. “Dead! Poor Mary Vern, what will become of her?”
“What’s the matter?” asked Willie, seeing the anxious look on our
hero’s face.
“A gentleman I knew well was killed in that railroad accident in
England—the gentleman whose daughter I aided at the hotel fire.”
“Is that so? Was his girl with him?”
“No, she is, I believe, still stopping at Ferryville.”
“It’s rough on her, ain’t it?” asked Willie, sympathetically.
“Yes, very rough. She and her father were alone in the world.”
Larry walked off in a very sober frame of mind. Since coming to the
city he had thought of pretty Mary Vern many times. It cut him to the
heart to think of what she must endure.
“I wish I could do something for her,” he thought.
He resolved to call upon her as soon as he got to Ferryville.
But when he journeyed to the town up the river and called at the hotel,
he found that Mary Vern had already received the sad news and had left
for New York City.
Kate was also interested, and wished she could do something for the
motherless and fatherless girl.
Kate sold off several things, and had others packed up so that the load
to be taken to New York was a small one.
Larry spent a good two hours in packing up the model of the extension
ladder along with his tools. Then he and Kate went around to bid their
friends goodby.
“Going to be a New York fireman after all, eh?” said Gus Romer.
“Well, I wish you all the success in the world,” and many others said
practically the same thing.
Saturday evening was spent around Ferryville, and while Kate went to
call on a lady friend, Larry strolled down through the main street of
the town, and out upon one of the docks.
As he walked along he was seen by Lank Possy and several of the bully’s
intimate cronies.
“There goes that Larry Barlow!” muttered the bully. “My, but ain’t he
stuck on himself since that hotel fire.”
“He’s going to leave town, Lank,” put in one of the others. “Say, you
ought to give him a dressing down before he goes.”
“That’s the talk,” cried a third of the crowd. “We’ll stand by you,
Lank.”
At these words Lank Possy’s face took on a look of cunning.
“Will you fellows stick by me if I tackle him?” he asked. “I know I can
handle him alone, but he might play me foul.”
“Of course we’ll stick by you,” was the answer.
“Did we ever go back on you?” put in another. “I would like first rate
to see Barlow get whipped.”
Soon the crowd of four worthless young fellows followed after Larry.
When our hero gained the end of the dock he came to a halt. It was
a beautiful night. Although there was no moon, there were countless
stars in the heavens, and these twinkled like so many diamonds in the
flowing water.
Presently Larry heard footsteps behind him, and found himself
confronted by Lank Possy and his cronies.
“What do you want?” he demanded, not pleased by the threatening
attitude of the quartet.
“I’m a-goin’ to get square with you!” hissed Possy, doubling up his
fists.
“Keep your distance, Possy, or you’ll get hurt!” answered Larry, as he
glanced around.
The dock was a long one, and deserted save for himself and his enemies.
If it came to a fight, it might be a case of one to four, and each of
his opponents was as big or bigger than himself.
“When last we met you didn’t fight fair,” blustered Lank Possy. “I am
going to get square for it.”
“I did fight fair,” retorted Larry. “But it looks to me as if this
wasn’t going to be a fair thing,” he added.
“We’ll see fair play,” growled one of Lank’s cronies. “So keep your
bouquets to yerself, Larry Barlow.”
Without warning, Lank Possy aimed a savage blow at our hero’s head.
Larry ducked and hit out in return, landing on the bully’s shoulder.
Then, as if by agreement, the quartet of rascals hurled themselves upon
Larry and bore him down.
They not only hit him, but also kicked him most brutally, until he was
more than half unconscious.
The struggle had taken the crowd to the very edge of the dock, and now
one of the number slipped and came near to going overboard.
He tried to save himself by clutching Larry’s leg, and in an instant
more both fell into the river with a loud splash.
“Shanner is overboard!” sang out one of the others, in horror.
“So is Larry Barlow!”
“Never mind Barlow!” cried Lank Possy. “Throw Shanner a rope or
something.”
But a rope was not handy, and the best that those on the dock could do
was to throw overboard a heavy plank which was handy.
As the plank landed, it struck Larry on the forehead. It was a cruel
blow, and for the time being our hero knew no more.
“Save me! save me!” spluttered Shanner, as he threw up his arms wildly.
“Save me! I can’t swim!”
“Catch the plank!” cried his friends, and as the plank bobbed up at his
side, Shanner did so and clung fast with the grip of death.
“Don’t—don’t leave me!” he gasped. “Haul me in, or get a boat!”
Much alarmed, Lank Possy and the others ran to one side of the dock and
procured a boat which was tied up there.
There were no oars, but some clapboards were handy, and they broke a
long one in half and used the parts for make-shift oars.
Soon they got to where Shanner was drifting and without much trouble
hauled him into the boat.
But the current of the river was strong, and soon the boat was being
carried out into midstream.
“This won’t do!” exclaimed Lank Possy. “Pull for the shore.”
“The boards won’t stay in the rowlocks,” growled one of his cronies.
“Then paddle.”
None of the young fellows was used to handling a boat, consequently it
took a good ten minutes to gain the dock once more and tie up.
Shanner had suffered but little from his wetting, but the tumble
overboard had almost scared him to death.
“I’ve had enough of—of this!” he gasped, with chattering teeth. “I’m
going home.”
“Where’s Barlow?” questioned another of the crowd suddenly.
In the excitement of saving Shanner, and in getting back to the dock,
they had forgotten Larry entirely.
All began to look around in alarm, but not a trace of our hero could be
found.
“He must have swum ashore and run away,” said Lank Possy.
But at this another of the crowd shook his head.
“No, I was watching the dock,” he said. “He didn’t go ashore—at least,
not around here.”
At this each one of the crowd gave a shiver.
“If he’s gone they’ll arrest us for this!” whispered one of the
fellows.
“We must keep this affair a secret,” put in Lank Possy, hastily.
“That’s it,” added Shanner. “Mum’s the word.”
“But his sister will be wondering what became of him,” said a lad named
Anderson. “They are going to move out of town in a day or two.”
“That’s none of our affair, Teddy,” said Lank Possy. “Mum’s the word.”
A shiver went the round. They turned back to the end of the dock and
took a long look up and down and across the stream. Not a soul was in
sight! “It does look as if he was a goner!” muttered one of the crowd.
Yet all were unwilling to believe that our hero had really disappeared.
Half an hour was spent on and around the dock, but all to no purpose.
“It’s no use,” sighed one of the lads. “We are in for it. Wonder what
the authorities will say when they learn that he is missing?”
“Come away!” muttered Lank Possy, hoarsely.
In a minute more the boys separated, each to go home with the feeling
in his heart that he had done a great wrong.
CHAPTER XII.
WHAT BECAME OF LARRY.
In the meantime, what of Larry?
Was he really drowned, as Lank Possy and his cronies surmised?
The swiftly flowing current carried him past the dock before he
regained even a small portion of his senses.
Then, as he opened his eyes for a brief second, he beheld a log
floating near, and clutched it just as a drowning man is supposed to
clutch at a straw. His mind was in a whirl, and more than once he
imagined he was going to the bottom of the stream to rise no more.
“The rascals! They would leave me to drown!” he thought.
He tried to cry out, but he was too exhausted to make more than a
hoarse whisper.
On and on he went, until of a sudden he bumped up along side of a
canal boat lying off a long coal dock.
“Help!” he managed to cry, and a man who was sitting on the canal boat
smoking heard him and leaped up in astonishment.
“Who calls?”
“I do,” answered Larry. “Help me out of the water.”
“Well, I vow!” ejaculated the canal boatman. “Wait, I’ll soon have ye
out!”
He ran for a rope and lowered one end. Larry was too weak to pull
himself up, but managed to tie the rope about his arm, and then the man
quickly lifted him to the deck.
“How did ye git in the river, stranger?”
“Some fellows attacked me on a dock at Ferryville,” answered our hero.
“Then the end of a plank struck and almost stunned me.”
“You’ve had a narrow escape.”
“I know it. I wish I could get at the gang responsible for this job.”
“Who are they? Anybody I know?”
“A young machinist named Lank Possy and three others named Shanner,
Anderson and Field.”
“I know Possy. He’s an ugly one. He worked around the boats a few years
ago, but he soon got his walking papers.”
The boatman was kind to Larry, and let him dry his clothing at the
fire, and also gave him a cup of hot coffee.
It was nearly midnight when Larry reached home. He found Kate sitting
up and alarmed over his staying away.
“You said you would be back at eleven o’clock or before,” she said,
half reproachfully.
He told of what had happened. She turned pale as she listened.
“Oh, Larry, I am so glad we are going away from Ferryville,” she cried.
“I hope you never meet Lank Possy and the others again.”
“I do—just once,” said the young machinist, and his words meant a good
deal.
The next day was Sunday, and Possy and his crowd kept out of sight.
They heard that Larry was around and were, of course, much relieved to
think they could not be held for his murder.
By Monday noon Larry and Kate were ready to move, and said a last
goodby to their neighbors.
Their few household effects had gone on before, and brother and sister
were making their way down to the boat landing when, on looking up a
side street, Larry caught sight of Lank Possy and Shanner walking along.
“Go on to the boat, Kate,” he said hurriedly. “I’ll be with you before
she starts.”
Then, before she could hold him back, he ran off after Possy and
Shanner. He caught them at a vacant corner, and, coming up behind them,
grabbed each by the collar.
“You miserable rats!” he cried, sternly, and bumped their heads
together like two balls. “Take that to remember me by!”
“Whow!” howled Shanner. “Let up! You’ve cracked my head open!”
“Let go of me, Larry Barlow!” shrieked Lank Possy, and twisted himself
loose. “Didn’t you get enough down to the dock Saturday night!”
“I got more than I intend to stand,” retorted Larry, his eyes flashing
fire. “Lank Possy, be on guard, for you are going to get the biggest
thrashing you ever received in your life.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” howled Possy, but he nevertheless turned pale.
Without another word Larry leaped forward and planted a blow on the
bully’s chest.
Possy struck out in return, and hit our hero on the shoulder.
Then Larry let out right and left half a dozen times in quick
succession.
The blows were as true as they were swift, and the bully caught it in
the ear, the nose, the mouth, and then squarely on the eye. Then Larry
delivered a final blow on the mouth which loosened two of Possy’s teeth
and sent him into a heap, all but overcome.
At first Shanner had stood by watching the progress of the struggle,
but as he saw his crony getting the worst of it he began to edge away.
As Possy went down he started to run, but Larry was too quick for him.
Now Shanner was a rich youth, a good deal of a sport, and he was a
friend to Possy simply because the bully was in the habit of catering
to his vanity. He was too much of a dude to know anything about
defending himself.
“Don’t you dare hit me!” he shrieked, as Larry caught him by the
shoulder.
“I’ll give you something to remember me by!” answered our hero. “You
shan’t throw me into the river for nothing.”
And without further ado he hauled off and let drive, straight for
Clarence Shanner’s ear, a blow that almost took the dude from his feet.
“You—you wretch,” moaned Shanner, and then seeing a loose picket lying
near, he ran and picked it up.
“Drop that picket!”
“I will not, you young ruffian,” panted Shanner. “How do you like that?”
He aimed a blow at Larry’s head, but our hero dodged it, and the next
instant wrenched the picket so forcibly from Shanner’s hand that
several ugly splinters were left behind. At once Shanner let out a yell
of pain.
“My hand! My hand!”
“Serves you right,” returned Larry.
“I’ll—I’ll have the law on you!”
“Don’t talk to me about law,” cried our hero, hotly. “Here’s something
more for you!”
As he spoke he whacked Clarence Shanner over the shoulders with the
picket.
The dude yelled with pain and fright, but Larry did not let up, and
when Shanner tried to break away our hero promptly tripped him up.
In the meantime Lank Possy looked around for some means of revenge.
Not far away lay a brick and, picking this up, he took aim and hurled
it at our hero’s head.
Larry was just turning at the time, and as the brick came closer he
dodged and the dangerous missile flew past his left ear.
“Take that for throwing the brick at me!” he exclaimed.
And before the bully knew what was happening our hero let him have the
picket directly over the face—a blow which stretched Lank Possy flat
on his back.
Then Larry turned again to Clarence Shanner.
“I’ll give them something to remember me by,” he declared.
“Don’t hit me again!” shrieked the dude.
“Are you sorry for what you did to me on Saturday night?” demanded
Larry.
“Yes, yes! Please don’t hit me again!”
“I ought to thrash you within an inch of your life,” answered our hero,
sharply.
Just then Clarence Shanner looked up the side street and saw a
policeman approaching rapidly.
The policeman’s name was Dawson, and he was well known to the
dude—indeed it had been his father who had used his influence to get
Dawson on the Ferryville force.
At once Shanner set up a loud call for assistance, and in a moment
more, before Larry had a chance to retreat, the bluecoat was on the
scene.
“What’s up here?” he roared, brandishing his club.
“Arrest that wretch!” cried Clarence Shanner. “He has been trying to
kill me.”
In another moment Larry found himself a prisoner in the hands of the
policeman.
CHAPTER XIII.
A RUN FOR LIBERTY.
“Let me go!” cried Larry when he found himself in the hands of the
officer of the law.
“I don’t think I will,” answered the bluecoat, grimly.
“Why not? I have done nothing to justify my arrest.”
“He has!” exclaimed Shanner. “He tried to kill me. And he tried to kill
Lank Possy too.”
The policeman turned to where Lank Possy was slowly staggering to his
feet.
“It—it’s true,” spluttered the bully. “He—he came up behind us with
that picket and let us have it before we knew what was happening.”
“They are not telling the truth,” declared Larry, with flashing eyes.
“I tackled them with my fists, and it was Shanner there who picked up
the picket and I took it away from him.”
“And what right had you to tackle ’em at all?” came from the policeman.
“I had a good right. Last Saturday——”
“Don’t you believe a word he says, Dawson!” interrupted Clarence
Shanner.
“I am telling the truth,” burst out our hero. “Four of them tackled me
Saturday night and shoved me into the river. I came pretty close to
drowning in consequence.”
“Oh, what a—a fairy tale,” came from Lank Possy. “Officer, don’t
believe him.”
“You’ll come with me to the station house,” growled the blue coat.
“They can listen to your story there.”
Larry’s heart leaped into his throat. If he was locked up what would
become of Kate? Then he remembered only too well that Clarence
Shanner’s father was wealthy and could easily make out a black case
against him.
“I’m not going to jail!” he burst out.
And with a dexterous twist he pulled himself from the policeman’s grasp
and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him.
“Stop! Stop!” roared the officer of the law as he started in pursuit.
“Stop! It will be best for you!”
“Not today,” returned Larry.
He was making for a side street leading to the wharves, and soon he
turned a corner, with the policeman in hot pursuit, and Clarence
Shanner and Possy bringing up the rear as well as they were able.
As it was the noon hour, many workmen were on the streets of
Ferryville, and some of these joined in the chase.
“He must have stolen something!” said one, and then was raised the cry
of “Thief! Stop thief!”
Looking back Larry saw a crowd of at least a dozen coming after him.
He had hoped to escape to the boat, but was now afraid to head in that
direction.
“They’ll haul me off before she starts,” he thought dismally.
He was passing an old tumbled-down factory and of a sudden darted into
this and passed to the rear.
He heard the crowd gain the front of the place, and then the policeman
and several others entered.
What was he to do next? As he asked himself the question he gazed
around and espied a long, low shed in the rear of the factory, leading
toward the river.
He ran through the shed with all possible speed and emerged upon a
tumbledown dock fronting the stream.
He was now nearly a quarter of a mile from where the steamboat for New
York started. He looked at the little watch he carried and saw that it
lacked six minutes of one o’clock.
“And the boat starts at one,” he groaned. “Can I get there in time?”
With the shouts of those left at the factory still ringing in his ears,
he crawled from one dock to another and then leaped to the next dock, a
distance of eight feet.
Then he gained a road running along the river and started on a dead run
for the steamboat landing.
As he came in sight of the boat her whistle began to blow and the deck
hands began to cast off the lines.
“Hi! stop!” he called out.
“Hurry up if you are going,” was the answer, as the deck hand threw the
last line off.
“Kate, where are you?” he called out, and then saw his sister at the
end of the dock, looking anxiously for him.
“Oh, Larry, where have you been?” she cried, but instead of answering
he bundled her on board and quickly followed. In a second more the
steamboat left the dock, and the journey to the metropolis was begun.
“I was so afraid you’d be left,” went on Kate, as he led her into the
cabin. “What kept you?”
“I’ll tell you as soon as I can get back my wind,” he panted, and he
did not attempt to say more for several minutes.
When she heard his story she was naturally much disturbed.
“I don’t blame you for what you did, Larry,” she said. “But what will
they do? They may send word on to New York.”
“I don’t think they will, although I’ll be on my guard when we arrive
and try to get off the boat with as little notice as possible. I guess
after Shanner and Possy think it over they’ll be afraid to enter a
formal complaint against me.”
“It is they who should be arrested.”
“You’re right, Kate; but we don’t always get justice in this world, you
know,” he answered.
The trip down the river was a pleasant one, and both would have enjoyed
it very much had it not been for the cloud hanging in their minds.
But their fears of Larry’s arrest in New York were groundless. No one
came to the steamboat dock after them, and that night saw them settled
in the little flat our hero had rented. Mrs. Morrison and Willie gave
them a warm welcome, and the former invited them to take supper with
her, which invitation was readily accepted.
The next week was a busy one for our hero. He entered the school of
instruction for firemen and was kept at work early and late learning
how to do his duty under any and all circumstances.
“You’re all right, Barlow,” said one of his instructors. “You took that
leap into the net most beautifully.”
“It was dead easy alongside of what I once had to take,” replied Larry.
This interested the instructor, and he asked for particulars, and our
hero showed him the account which he had cut from the pictorial weekly.
“Well, no wonder, Barlow!” exclaimed the instructor. “You are one of
the firemen that are born, not made. I don’t doubt but what you’ll make
a big record for yourself when you get to work.”
“I shall certainly try,” answered Larry.
CHAPTER XIV.
MARY VERN’S GUARDIAN.
One afternoon when Larry had a half a day to himself, he was strolling
down Broadway, when a young lady, coming from a jewelry store, ran and
caught him by the arm.
“Why, Mr. Barlow, where have you been keeping yourself?” she asked.
He turned to find himself confronted by Mary Vern, dressed in the
deepest of mourning.
“Miss Vern,” he returned, in surprise. “I hardly expected to see you
here.”
“No? Then you didn’t know I was living in New York now?”
“No. I was wondering what had become of you since the sad loss of your
father. I was very, very sorry to hear of that.”
He looked at her sympathetically and saw her eyes fill with tears,
which she hastily brushed away.
“It was a—a great shock,” she said, in a low voice. “I don’t feel that
I will ever get over it. But what are you doing here? Have you gotten
into the fire department at last?”
“I have, although as yet I am only in the school of instruction.”
“I don’t understand,” and she looked puzzled.
“I am learning. I am not yet a graduate, so to speak,” he smiled. “You
know there is a great deal for a city fireman to learn.”
“I presume that is true.” The girl paused. “Then you have moved to the
city?”
“Yes. My sister and I live in a little flat,” and he gave the address.
“I live on West Forty-first street now,” she went on, and gave the
number. “I shall be pleased to see you at any time when I am home.”
“Thank you, Miss Vern. You are very good to—me.” He was going to say
“a common fireman,” but checked himself.
“I have not forgotten that you saved my life,” she returned, her face
flushing. “I shall never forget that.”
“Of course you are not living alone?” he said, to change the subject.
“No, I am living with my guardian and his daughter Laura. His name is
Mr. Martin Pollox.”
“Martin Pollox!” gasped our hero in astonishment.
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I—er—I know of him,” he stammered. “So Mr. Pollox is your guardian?”
“Yes.”
“Made so by your father’s will, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” said Larry, bluntly.
“Why?” and her face showed her interest.
“Well, if you want the truth, Mr. Pollox is a man I do not like. In
fact, I have grave reasons for not liking him.”
At this Mary Vern’s face fell slightly.
“To tell the truth, I do not like Mr. Pollox myself,” she said, in
almost a whisper, and with a look behind her.
“Doesn’t he treat you right?”
“He does and he doesn’t. He hates to see me going to visit any of my
old friends. He wants me to either stay home or else go out with his
daughter Laura, whom I don’t like.”
“But you are alone now.”
“No; Laura is still in the store. She will come out in a moment.
“Why does he object to your visiting your old friends?”
“I do not know, except that he is afraid I may talk over my late
father’s affairs with them.”
“But he oughtn’t to be afraid of that if he is a square man,” insisted
Larry.
“He is a—very queer man.”
“How queer? Perhaps you had better tell me. I may be able to do
something for you.”
“Whenever he has certain visitors come to the house he bundles me out
of sight and hearing.”
“Don’t want you to hear what is going on, eh?”
“Then he talks, too, of sending me to England to be educated. I do not
want to go to England.”
“Has he ever told you how much your father left you?”
“No; but papa was worth over two hundred thousand dollars when he died.”
“And all this is now in Mr. Pollox’s care?”
“Yes.”
“Is he a relative?”
“He claims to be a distant relative, but I cannot trace the line.”
“Have you any near relatives?”
“No.”
“It is a great pity. Frankly, I would not trust Mr. Pollox any further
than I could see him.”
“Do you think he would—would cheat me out of my fortune?” cried Mary
Vern, with wide open eyes.
Before Larry could answer, a stylishly dressed young woman emerged from
the jewelry store and caught Mary by the arm.
“Come, we will go on,” she said, coldly.
She looked a great deal like Martin Pollox, and Larry rightfully
guessed that she was the daughter Mary Vern had mentioned.
“Very well,” said the girl. “Allow me——”
“Good-bye,” interrupted Larry, not caring for an introduction. “I’ll be
in your neighborhood Wednesday afternoon,” he whispered, and, lifting
his cap, walked off.
“Mary, who is that creature?” demanded Laura Pollox when the two girls
were alone.
“He is a friend of mine—the one who saved my life at that fire in
Ferryville. His name is Larry Barlow.”
“A very common-looking young man. If I were you I wouldn’t have
anything to do with him.”
“I shall not forget the great service he did for me. He risked his life
for mine.”
“Pooh! I think you overrate his services, Mary. Any fireman would have
done as much.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What is he doing in New York?”
“He has joined the fire department here.”
“You must not make a friend of him. He is not in our society.”
“He is as good as anybody.”
“Nonsense, Mary! He is only a low, ill-bred young man, who——”
“He is no more low and ill-bred than you!” retorted Mary Vern, hotly.
“He did me a great service, and I shall always consider him my friend
and my equal.”
At this Laura Pollox pursed up her lips tightly.
“As you please, but I don’t think papa will allow it,” she said, and
added: “Here comes John with the carriage. We had better go home before
you discover some more of your country acquaintances.”
In a moment more they had entered the carriage. When they got home Mary
went directly to her room, while Laura sought out her father, who was
in the library.
“What is it, Laura?” asked Martin Pollox, as he looked up from some
patent papers he was studying.
“I want to speak about Mary,” answered the fashionable daughter.
“What of her?”
“Today, when we were out on Broadway, she spoke to a common-looking
fellow from Ferryville—the fireman who saved her at the hotel fire.
She seems to want to make a friend of him.”
“Ahem! He can’t be her equal.”
“That is what I said.”
“Mary must forget him. What was his name?”
“Larry Barlow.”
At the mention of our hero’s name Martin Pollox fell back in his chair
in amazement.
“Barlow! Are you sure?”
“Yes, papa. Why are you surprised?”
“I—er—it is nothing. Only I once knew a man named Barlow.”
“This was a young man. He is now a New York fireman.”
“Is that so?” Martin Pollox paused. “Well, Mary should have nothing to
do with him.”
A lady visitor was now announced to see Miss Laura, and she went off,
leaving her father to himself.
“Larry Barlow!” muttered Martin Pollox. “It must be that man’s son. If
so he must not become a visitor here under any circumstances.”
CHAPTER XV.
A FULL-FLEDGED FIREMAN AT LAST.
After leaving Martin Pollox’s residence, Larry Barlow returned to the
School of Instructions in a very thoughtful mood.
“Something is wrong here, I am certain of it,” he told himself. “I
wouldn’t trust Martin Pollox. He will surely swindle Mary Vern out of
her fortune if he can possibly do so.”
Our hero wondered how it was that Martin Pollox had become the guardian
of the beautiful girl, but just then there was no chance of finding out
the particulars.
The truth would have surprised him greatly.
The days passed, and our hero kept steadily at his work—and hard work
it was, too, from morning to night, and often right in the middle of
the night.
All of the would-be firemen would be sound asleep, when of a sudden
the gong would ring out, and the captain in command would stand by the
engine and mark down in his book just how many seconds it took each
young fellow to jump up, scramble into his clothes and be ready to
leave the fire-house.
Larry, although he slept soundly, was readily awakened, so he had no
trouble in “making time,” as it is called, but one of the fellows, a
German-American named Brunwurst, had all he could do to get downstairs.
“I vos tream me such a peautiful tream!” he sighed. “I vos gettin’
married und der church pell vos ringing alretty, und I vosn’t dinking
of no fires——”
“Well, you dream of getting married some other time,” broke in the
captain. “Unless you do, you’ll be getting married without being a
fireman.”
“Ach, ton’t say dot, captain!” pleaded Brunwurst. “I vosn’t tream me
noddings more so long as I peen in der fire-house.”
Yet on the next night the German-American was almost as late as before.
But he “got square” on the night following, for he lay awake, and beat
all records by being on the machine before even the horses were in
place.
“Didn’t I vos told you I could do him?” he asked, proudly. “You chust
gif me der chance, some more alretty!”
There was so much to do and to learn that Larry got no chance to call
again upon Mary Vern. He kept steadily at work, until one morning he
was handed a document which stated that he had passed the required
examinations, and could now consider himself a full-fledged fireman.
George Harwell likewise passed, along with a number of others. Poor
Brunwurst was held back for another month’s trial.
“Hurrah! we are O. K. at last!” cried Larry, enthusiastically. “Now for
real duty!”
“That’s the talk!” returned George Harwell.
Our hero was assigned to a company located just below Central Park, in
a very fashionable portion of the town.
As is usual in such cases, the old members of the organization looked
rather dubiously at the newcomer. They were all veterans in the
service, and they knew just how much they could depend upon each other.
“He looks likely enough,” remarked one of the men, Dave Randall by
name. “But you can’t tell by a frog’s looks how far he can jump.”
“The first good blaze will show him up,” answered another of the
company.
That very afternoon the alarm sounded in that district, and the company
had to go out.
But the fire proved to be of small account—merely a Chinese laundry,
and Larry had little to do. Yet what he did was done in the best
possible manner.
“He’s well drilled, you can see that,” said Randall.
“But that don’t count for nerve,” said another. “Wait till he has
to crawl up a long ladder through thick smoke, or go into a flooded
cellar.”
On the day following, Larry was finishing his supper, when the alarm
sounded again. With his mouth full of food, he ran for his boots, coat
and hat, and was on the engine as quickly as anybody.
Down the block whirled the machine, through a crowd of carriages and
wagons, and swung into one of the broad thoroughfares leading to the
Park.
Soon they reached the scene of the fire, a tall, brown-stone front
dwelling.
The smoke was pouring from the basement and likewise from the top
floor. In the rear of the dwelling was a mass of flames from top to
bottom.
The hose was quickly stretched, and soon a half dozen streams of water
were being poured on the conflagration.
In the meantime a hook and ladder company arrived, and other engines
went around the block, to fight the flames from the rear.
“We’ll take the hose inside,” was the order which was presently given,
and into the building went Larry with several others.
Here the smoke was so thick that little could be seen, and they had to
open a window for air.
Larry was working away steadily, when he suddenly heard a fall to one
side of him and saw Randall go down, overcome by the smoke.
He himself was feeling dizzy, yet he braced up, and catching the old
fireman in his arms, staggered to the hallway and out of the building
with him.
“What’s up, Barlow?” was the cry.
“Overcome with smoke, sir.”
“It’s a good thing you brought him out. How do you feel yourself?”
“I’ll be all right in a minute, sir.”
“Don’t go in again unless you can stand it.”
Our hero remained outside several minutes, then went to work once more.
Several were now ordered to the second story, with axes and a line of
hose, and with the crowd went our hero, anxious to do his duty to the
utmost.
The smoke was not so thick here, for all doors had been kept closed,
and from one room the firemen passed to another, anxious to locate such
of the flames as were spreading under the floors.
Presently Larry found himself in a small bedroom separated from the
rest of the house by a narrow hallway.
There was not much smoke here, but the room was quite dark.
He was looking around, when of a sudden a small and horribly deformed
man confronted him, having leaped forth from a closet in the corner.
“Ha! So you are the Fire King?” he cried, clutching Larry by the arm.
“I say, you are the Fire King!” went on the man. “You have burnt up my
kingdom!” and he held Larry tighter than ever.
Our hero saw at once that he had a crazy person to deal with, and a
glance around the apartment showed that it had been designed especially
for the man—his relatives probably hating to put him in a public
institution.
“Come on with me, sir,” said Larry, as quietly as he could.
“No, no! This is my kingdom!” shrieked the insane one. “And you shall
not burn it up. Do you know who I am? I am the Czar of Russia,” and the
man glared wildly at Larry.
“Well, Czar, we’ll have to move on, or we’ll be burnt up. Come.”
Larry tried his best to persuade the crazy man to leave, but the fellow
would not budge.
“I’ll get help and have him removed,” he reasoned, and started to leave
the room.
But with a snarl like that of a wild animal, the crazy man hurled
himself upon our hero, and bore him to the floor.
“You shall not go!” he hissed. “If my kingdom is to be burnt up, you
shall go with it. Ha, ha! I will sing, as Nero fiddled at the burning
of Rome!” and he began to sing loudly.
“Let me up!” gasped Larry, for the man had him by the throat. And he
struggled strenuously to release himself. But like many other crazy
persons, the madman was as strong as a bull, and our hero could not
shake him off.
“The kingdom is melting!” went on the man, as he heard the crackling of
the flames. “Hurrah for the Fire King! He’ll melt, too, like butter in
the oven! Why don’t you sing?”
“Let go of—my—throat, and—I’ll sing!” Larry managed to gasp.
At once the madman released his throat.
“Now sing,” he ordered, sternly. “Sing, la, la, la—tra, la, la, la!”
His voice went up and down in a manner to make one’s blood curdle.
“Why don’t you fiddle while I sing?” asked Larry, an idea popping into
his head.
“Fiddle?”
“Yes, fiddle. It will be so much better.”
“But I have no instrument?” and the crazy man looked around anxiously.
“Yes, you have. There is a fiddle hanging up in yonder closet. Quick,
before the building goes down. The fiddle must be saved!”
“Yes, yes, the fiddle must be saved!” muttered the man, and leaping up
he ran toward the closet. As he entered it Larry came behind and closed
and bolted the door. Then, as fast as he was able, he ran into one of
the other rooms.
“A crazy man!” he cried. “Quick, we must rescue him!”
“A crazy man?” repeated two of the firemen, and they followed Larry at
once. When the closet was gained, they found that the man inside had
already kicked out one of the lower panels of the door.
He was furiously angry when released, and it took the combined strength
of all three firemen to hold him. But finally they grabbed him by the
arms and legs and hauled him down the stairs and into the street. An
ambulance was close by, and into this he was placed, and the surgeon
and two policemen took him off to the nearest institution for the
insane.
The fight with the madman had almost exhausted Larry, but he returned
to his duty, and remained at his post until the building was gutted
with water and the fire was out.
“You did well, Barlow,” said the captain of the company. “You have
learned your duty thoroughly.”
Randall was already at the house, lying on a bed upstairs. He took
Larry’s hand earnestly.
“You’re all right,” he whispered hoarsely, for the smoke had affected
his throat. “You’re one of us from this time on.”
And that was the way Larry Barlow became a full-fledged New York City
fire laddie.
CHAPTER XVI.
FACE TO FACE WITH AN ENEMY.
It was several weeks later when Larry got an afternoon off, and
determined to take a walk in the direction of Martin Pollox’s home on
Forty-first street. He did not expect to call at the house, but hoped
to see Mary Vern at one of the windows.
He was not disappointed. The girl was at an upper window doing some
fancy work, and immediately ran down to the stone steps to greet him.
“Won’t you come in?” she asked, after shaking hands. “Mr. Pollox and
his daughter are both away, and only the servants and myself are home.”
“Thank you, I will come in for a little while,” replied Larry.
He was in his new uniform, with everything carefully brushed, and
looked as handsome as any fireman in New York.
Mary led the way to a back parlor, and motioned him to an easy chair,
while seating herself on a nearby couch.
“I have been expecting you for so long,” she said, pouting prettily.
“Why didn’t you come before?”
“I had my duty to attend to,” he answered. “But tell me, you are quite
alone?”
“Yes. The servants are downstairs and upstairs.”
“Then I want to ask you about Mr. Pollox. Has his treatment of you
changed any?”
At this Mary Vern’s face fell.
“He is not so—so kind as he was,” she faltered. “And Laura is very
strict, too. They hardly let me go out at all.”
“Doesn’t he allow you any spending money?”
“He allows me a dollar a week. Papa used to give me whatever I wanted.”
“Mr. Pollox must be a good deal of a miser.”
“What do you know of him? I am dying to know.”
“I don’t know much; but I suspect a good deal. Do you ever hear him
talking about inventions? Especially about elevator lifts?”
“I heard him talking about a lift once—when another man was here to
see him, a rough-looking fellow called Check something.”
“Check Sluggers?”
“That’s the name.”
“What did he say?”
“Said the patent was all right, and that he now had the money with
which to form his company. I did not hear any more, for Laura made me
go out with her.”
Larry shook his head.
“I am afraid it is as I suspected,” he said.
“What do you suspect?”
“I do not know as I ought to tell you. I do not wish to alarm you
needlessly.”
“But you must tell me, I count you my best friend,” she cried, and
caught his arm affectionately.
“Well, I’ll have to tell you my whole story,” he answered, after some
thought, and did so, not omitting the meeting between Pollox and
Sluggers in the East side tenement.
“Now, it looks to me as if he had my father’s invention,” he went on,
“and it likewise looks to me as if he was going to use your money for
pushing it.”
“Why don’t you get a lawyer to investigate—that’s what my papa used
to do whenever anything went wrong,” said Mary, with something of a
smile.
“There is one trouble; I haven’t any money to spend on lawyers.
Besides, I want to make sure that the lift is really the one stolen
from my father.”
“He has plans in his library—we might look at them,” suggested the
girl.
Resolved to gain all the information possible while he had the chance
to do so, our hero followed her into the library, and she brought out a
portfolio filled with drawings.
The pair were soon busily engaged over the drawings.
“Here they are!” cried Larry presently, and began to study the papers
closely. “The same!” he cried, excitedly.
“What do you mean?”
“These papers belonged to my father. He had them when he came to New
York!”
“You are sure?”
“Yes, I remember them well. Do you see that blot of ink? My sister Kate
and I got that on the paper by accident. We were very sorry, but my
father told us not to mind, that it wouldn’t hurt the drawing in the
least.”
“I wonder how Mr. Pollox got possession of the drawings?”
“He got them away from my father, by fair means or foul,” answered our
hero, and a peculiar glitter came into his eyes. “I’ll know the truth
when we meet.”
“Will you know the truth?” asked a voice from the doorway.
Both turned quickly, to behold Martin Pollox standing there, his face
as pale as death.
“Oh,” screamed Mary, and fell back on a couch, all but overcome.
“So you are Walter Barlow’s son?” said Martin Pollox, taking a step
closer to Larry.
“I am, and I am not afraid to acknowledge it,” was our hero’s firm
reply.
“And you came here to spy upon me?”
“No, no, I invited him in,” interrupted the girl.
“Mary, be silent. I will deal with this young man, who has been filling
your head with falsehoods about me. You must not believe a word he
says.”
“Martin Pollox, have a care!” burst out Larry. “You were concerned in
the disappearance of my father, you cannot deny it.”
“But I do deny it, you foolish boy. Why should I want him to disappear?”
“You knew the value of his invention—you wanted to get possession of
it.”
“It was not his invention, it was mine.”
“It is false!”
“It is true, and I can prove it,” answered Martin Pollox, with a shrewd
look out of his foxy eyes. “I gave him my ideas and got him to work
them out according to my directions. He brought the complete drawings
to New York, along with a model, for which I also paid him. While in
New York, I am sorry to say, he went on a most beastly drunk, and while
in that condition, I presume some thugs stole what money he had left
and took his life.”
“My father never got drunk and you are a villain to say so!” ejaculated
Larry, and angered beyond endurance, he struck out and hit Martin
Pollox a telling blow straight between the eyes.
The man went down as if shot, and lay on the floor of the library like
one dead. Mary Vern let out a scream she could not suppress, and in a
minute more several servants came rushing upon the scene.
CHAPTER XVII.
A WAR OF WORDS.
“Oh, Larry, what have you done?”
It was Mary Vern who asked the question, as soon as she could recover
sufficiently to speak.
“It was his fault,” replied our hero, as he bent over Martin Pollox, to
make an examination. “I gave him a pretty stiff crack, didn’t I?”
“Sure, an’ what’s this quarrel about?” asked an Irish servant girl, as
she came to a halt at the doorway, in sheer amazement. “Is it me master
that’s kilt?”
“No,” answered Larry.
Two other servants appeared, staring in horror at the form on the
carpet.
“He’s killed. That young man is his murderer!” shrieked the cook of the
house. “Call a policeman, and have him locked up!”
“No—no!” put in Mary Vern. “He is—he is coming around.”
She was right, Martin Pollox was slowly regaining his senses. He opened
his eyes in a dazed fashion, and then tried to stand up. Mary took hold
of one hand and Larry of the other, and both helped him into an easy
chair.
The owner of the mansion glared at our hero for several seconds in
silence.
“Yo—you knocked me down!” he said, slowly.
“I did—and you deserved it!” answered Larry, coolly.
“Did I?” there was a sneer in Martin Pollox’s voice. “We’ll see about
that, young man.”
“Send away your servants,” said Larry. “Unless you wish them to know
all about your private affairs.”
“You can go,” said Martin Pollox to the cook and the others. “I can
take care of myself.”
“Don’t you want no policeman?” asked the cook.
“No—not at present.”
Slowly the hired help withdrew, reluctant to leave what promised to be
a highly interesting scene. As soon as they were gone, Mary Vern closed
the door leading to the hallway.
“Why did you—er hit me such a blow?” questioned Martin Pollox. “Did
you want to kill me?”
“No, but I wanted to teach you a lesson. You had no right to speak so
of my father. He never drank to excess. Your story won’t wash with me.”
“Then you don’t—er—believe what I have told you?”
“I do not.”
“You are very impertinent.”
“That is only your opinion, and it carries no weight with me.”
“What do you propose to do?”
“Find out what really became of my father.”
“Well, I don’t much blame you for wanting to find out what became of
him, but you mustn’t say that I am responsible for his disappearance.
What I told you, I honestly believe to be the truth.”
Again Larry clenched his fists.
“I told you that my father wasn’t a drinking man.”
“That might have been, Barlow, but you forget one thing: knockout drops
are cheap in New York, and your father might have been knocked out
through drinking a single glass of liquor.”
At these words Larry started back. He realized the truth of what Martin
Pollox was saying. Only that morning he had been reading about a rich
farmer from Long Island who had come to New York with five hundred
dollars in his pocket.
The farmer had been found on a bench in Central Park, penniless, and
all he could remember was that he had taken one glass of liquor with
a stranger with whom he had become acquainted while sight-seeing, and
that liquor had made him so sleepy he had dozed off inside of five
minutes afterward.
“What leads you to suspect that my father was the victim of knockout
drops?” he asked, suspiciously.
“Several things. In the first place, while I was negotiating with him
for the invention, he told me of a hail and hearty fellow he had met
down in Water street. The fellow was from Chicago, and your father said
the stranger was out of money, and had asked for a loan of ten dollars,
telling a good story to get it.”
“Well?”
“Your father let the stranger have the money, and spoke of him several
times later.”
“What of the stranger? Do you know his name?”
“It was Redmund Daily.”
“Did you see him after my father’s disappearance?”
“I did not; nor did I see him before. But from what your father said I
am almost certain he went off with this Redmund Daily after I paid him
for his work on the invention.”
“How much did you give my father?”
“The first payment was two thousand dollars. The second payment was
eight hundred dollars, and that last payment was what he had in his
pocket when he disappeared. Remember, eight hundred dollars is a great
temptation to any New York thief.”
“I suppose it is. And you are willing to take your affidavit that you
do not know what became of my father after you paid him off?”
“I am. I was sorry to hear of his disappearance, and I am even more
sorry now, since it has caused me all this trouble.”
“But you don’t explain one thing, Mr. Pollox.”
“What is that?”
“I met you and Check Sluggers in an elevated train once, and you spoke
about the invention and said you could use it now, as you didn’t think
Barlow’s son would give you any trouble. What did you mean by that?”
Martin Pollox’s face turned white and he half arose in his chair, then
sank back heavily.
“You—er—you were spying on me?”
“No, the meeting on the train was accidental.”
“Well—I—er—that is, I didn’t want any trouble, such as we have just
had, that’s all.”
“You were afraid I would kick up a fuss if you made the invention a
valuable one by manufacturing it and pushing it?”
“That’s about it. You know it takes a lot of money to manufacture and
push a thing.”
“Yes.”
“And now, let me ask a few questions. What brought you to my house?”
“I invited him in,” spoke up Mary.
“Oh!” Martin Pollox’s face dropped.
For a moment the man’s face was a study. Then of a sudden a peculiar
smile broke out around his cold and calculating mouth.
“Barlow, I shouldn’t let you have the money, considering what you have
done,” he said, slowly, “but I’ll be generous to you. I am going to
make you a present of two hundred dollars.”
Of course Larry was amazed. Was Martin Pollox losing his senses?
“Make me a present of two hundred dollars?” he cried.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want your money!”
“It will not be my money, exactly. You see, Mr. Vern wanted to reward
you for what you did for Mary.”
“Did he leave me two hundred dollars?”
“He specified no sum, but in his notebook he left this memorandum:
‘Don’t forget to reward Larry Barlow for saving Mary,’ and behind this
were some figures that looked like $100 or $200. I am going to give you
the larger sum—with Mary’s permission.”
“By all means!” cried the girl. “But I thought papa was going to make
it five hundred dollars?”
“Two hundred dollars is a nice sum for a young man in Mr. Barlow’s
circumstances,” observed Martin Pollox, oilily.
At that moment came an unexpected interruption. The servant who
attended the door appeared.
“If you please, Mr. Pollox,” she said, “Mr. Sluggers is here and wants
to see you at once.”
Martin Pollox looked much disturbed. Larry watched him curiously, and
it must be confessed that the young fireman was deeply interested.
CHAPTER XVIII.
MARTIN POLLOX MAKES A MOVE.
For the moment after the servant announced that Sluggers wanted to see
him, Martin Pollox did not move.
Then with a great effort he drew himself together.
“Wait a minute,” he said to Larry and Mary Vern. “Wait until I come
back. And leave those things exactly as they are,” and he pointed at
the drawings.
He slipped from the room and they heard him hurry to the front hallway.
A quick murmur of voices followed.
“I wonder if he will bring Check Sluggers in here,” said Larry in a low
voice, and added: “That rascal is Mr. Pollox’s best, or worst, tool.”
Mary shook her head sorrowfully. Such villainy as she was witnessing
was beyond her innocent young heart to understand.
In a minute more, before Larry could do anything with the drawings,
even if he so desired, Martin Pollox came back. As he approached they
heard the front door slam and knew that Check Sluggers had been sent
away.
“I—er—it was too bad I was interrupted,” said Martin Pollox, hardly
knowing what to say. Then he gathered himself together. “Let me see,
where were we at? Oh, yes, I offered you two hundred dollars for saving
Mary’s life. I think that is a nice sum for any young man to receive.
Come, are you willing to accept?”
For a moment our hero remained silent. He felt that something was
wrong, yet he could not tell exactly what. Was the rascal before him
trying to bribe him?
“Excuse me, Mr. Pollox, but I don’t want your money,” he said at last.
“It is not his money,” broke in Mary. “It is money my papa wished you
to have.”
“If Mr. Vern wanted me to have this money why didn’t you let me have it
before?”
“I—er—I was too busy to attend to everything,” stammered Martin
Pollox. “I became Mary’s guardian quite unexpectedly and I had a great
task to straighten Mr. Vern’s affairs out. Even yet there is much to
do which remains undone. He was mixed up in so many business schemes.”
“Did he appoint you his executor?” asked Larry, curiously.
“That is my business, Mr. Barlow. I offer you the money freely. You can
take it or leave it, just as you please.”
“If Mr. Vern wanted me to have it you can give it to me,” said Larry,
after a moment’s pause.
Getting up with an effort, Martin Pollox went to his desk, took out a
box containing a pocketbook and from this counted out the two hundred
dollars in bills.
“There you are.”
Larry took the money without a word. Then he turned to Mary. “I will
thank you, for your father’s sake, for this,” he said.
“If I had my way it would be a thousand,” she returned simply.
“Now, Barlow, let us be friends,” went on Martin Pollox. “If I can help
trace your father I’ll do so gladly.”
“Have you ever heard of this Redmund Daily since that time?”
“I have not. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll put a detective on
the track and pay him myself for his work.”
“Never mind about the pay—I’ll attend to that.”
There now seemed nothing more to say, and Martin Pollox showed that he
wished to get our hero out of the house.
As Larry passed Mary he whispered in her ear:
“Be on your guard. If you want help send me a message. I am going to
use the money to get at the bottom of this mystery.”
She stared at him, and then nodded, to show that she understood.
In a moment more he was outside and walking slowly toward the corner.
Martin Pollox watched him out of sight, then turned harshly toward Mary
Vern.
“Mary, don’t you ever dare to ask him into my house again,” he
commanded.
“Can’t I have anybody come to see me?” she asked slowly.
“Yes, you can have the proper kind of persons—when your cousin Laura
is around, or I am here.”
“You are very hard on me, Mr. Pollox.”
“I know what is best for you.”
“My papa always let me choose my own company.”
“He was too indulgent with you. You ought to be above associating with
a common fireman.”
“Mr. Barlow is a gentleman.”
“A gentleman wouldn’t come in here to knock me down.”
“You said some dreadful things to him.”
“And I had a right to say them. His father was nothing but a sot—and
he knows it as well as I do. I gave him far more money than he
deserved—and that is my reward. I presume the young fellow will tell
everybody that I cheated him out of the invention.”
“If you have a clear claim you ought to be able to prove it to the
world.”
“I have a clear claim, but unfortunately I trusted too much to old man
Barlow. I should have had everything down in black and white, and then
there wouldn’t have been any trouble.”
To this Mary could make no reply.
“He is no fit companion for you. I wish you to move in the best of New
York society, as befits your station. What would our social friends say
if they knew you associated with a common fireman?”
“I don’t know what they would say—and I don’t care!” she burst out,
and ran off to her room, where she locked the door, threw herself on
the bed and gave herself over to a passionate fit of weeping.
“Oh, papa, papa!” she moaned. “Why did you die and leave me in the
hands of such a man as Martin Pollox? Oh, if only I had died with you!”
Martin Pollox strode up and down his library in a thoughtful mood.
“A narrow escape,” he muttered to himself. “I reckon I came in in the
nick of time. That young fellow knows altogether too much. If he had
looked all through that portfolio he might have run across something
that would have surprised him. I ought to have had the old drawings
burned up and new ones made.” He stopped short for a while. “I wonder
if he’ll push his investigations any further? If he does he may get
me into more hot water. I wish I could get him out of New York.” He
bit his thin lips reflectively. “Perhaps I can do that. I’ll ask Check
Sluggers about it.”
An hour later, when he was still in his library, Laura Pollox came in
from a shopping tour of the department stores.
“Laura, I want to see you a minute,” he said, and motioned her into the
library.
“What is it, father?” she questioned, anxiously, fearing he was going
to lecture her for the big bills she had sent in to be paid.
“I want to speak to you about Mary.”
“Oh!” and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“I want you to keep a close eye on her.”
“I always do.”
“But you always don’t!” he snapped. “When I came home today I found her
entertaining—whom do you think?”
“I’m sure I can’t guess.”
“That young fireman, Larry Barlow.”
“What—here in this house?” screamed the fashionable daughter.
“Yes; and what is more, Mary had him in this library and was showing
him my private drawings of inventions.”
“The idea! Has Mary no sense at all?”
“Evidently not. You must watch her closely.”
“I will! She shan’t disgrace us—no, indeed!” and Laura Pollox tossed
her head disdainfully.
“You must see to it that she has nothing more to do with that young
fireman.”
“I’ll do my best. But then I can’t watch her always. I must return
calls, you know, and she won’t always go along.”
“I’ve been thinking of a plan. How would you like to spend a month or
so at Asbury Park or Newport?”
“I’d like to go to Asbury Park. The Van Aldens are there.”
“Then supposing you go, and take Mary with you. It will do you both
good.”
The idea pleased Laura Pollox, for she wished to be near the Van
Aldens, who had a marriageable son with whom she was much smitten. She
did not care to have Mary along, but knew she could not go otherwise.
So, unknown to Mary, all matters were arranged for her and Laura to go
to Asbury Park the following Monday.
When told of the plan Mary demurred somewhat, but Martin Pollox would
not listen to her protestations.
“The trip will do you good,” he said. “Go and have a good time,” and he
saw his daughter and his ward off on the train.
When he returned home there was a smile of grim satisfaction on his
crafty face.
“Out of the way for a month,” he muttered. “And as for that young
Barlow—well, a good deal can happen in a month. Let him take care how
he crosses my path!”
CHAPTER XIX.
THE GREAT OIL DOCK FIRE.
After remaining near the Pollox mansion for some time, Larry walked
across town, took an elevated train and rode down to his own home, on
Second avenue.
As he passed up the semi-dark stairway he heard talking in the kitchen
of the rooms he and Kate occupied.
“Yer needn’t git on yer high-hoss about it,” came in the voice of Bill
Buck. “I ain’t goin’ ter hurt yer, Kate Barlow.”
“I want you to go away, Bill Buck,” was the reply from Kate, and her
voice trembled with emotion. “I don’t want your attentions, so there!”
“But why won’t yer be nice ter me? It won’t cost yer nuthin’.”
“I won’t—that’s why. Now go.”
“Not so fast, I ain’t goin’ just yet.”
As he spoke, Bill Buck stepped toward Kate, who started to retreat to
the next room.
He was close to the girl when of a sudden he received a blow in the ear
that all but paralyzed him.
“Leave my sister alone!” came in a stern command from Larry. “Leave her
alone, you impudent rascal.”
“Larry!” ejaculated Kate, much relieved. “Oh, how glad I am that you
are here.”
“Wot did yer hit me fer?” demanded Bill Buck, as he staggered away from
the table against which our hero’s blow had sent him. “Do you want ter
fight?”
“If you don’t get out in a hurry I’ll kick you down the stairs,”
returned Larry. “And don’t you dare show your face in this house again,
or dare to say a word to my sister on the street.”
“Won’t I? You t’ink——”
What Bill Buck thought Larry thought was never expressed in words, for
without further ceremony our hero caught him by the shoulder, swung him
around and started him for the hallway.
“Lem—lemme go!” screamed the big newsboy, but Larry’s blood was up,
and with a rush he carried Bill Buck to the stairs and gave him a
shove. Bump! bump! bump! down the stairs went the fellow, howling with
pain and fright. Before he could get up, Larry was on him again, and
down the next stairs went the newsboy, yelling louder than ever. Then
Larry finished by rushing him across the sidewalk and into the gutter,
with a parting kick that Bill Buck remembered for long afterward.
“I’ll wager he won’t come here again,” he said to Kate, on coming
upstairs again. “He’s scared out of his skin.”
“I hope he doesn’t come again,” she answered. “I was awfully frightened
when he came in.”
Kate was much worked up and it took some time to calm her down. She had
been expecting Larry, knowing it was his day off, and asked why he had
not come earlier.
When he told his story of what had occurred at the Pollox mansion her
face grew grave.
“What a villain he must be, Larry!” was her comment.
“That’s just what I think.”
“What shall you do next?”
“I don’t know yet. I want to think it over.”
“Be careful he doesn’t try to get you in his power.”
“I shall keep my eyes open—don’t fear,” he answered.
Larry spent a pleasant evening at home with Kate. Before retiring he
took another look at his model of an extension ladder.
“I’m going to do something with this before long,” he said; “just as
soon as I can get to the bottom of the mystery concerning father’s
disappearance.”
The following morning found Larry at the engine house as usual. During
the next three days there were several small fires, but nothing of any
importance.
“We’re having an easy spell of it,” said Randall, “but we’ll have to
pay up for it, mark my words.”
It was the truth, for on the following day, late in the afternoon,
a large and particularly nasty fire broke out on one of the docks
fronting the East River.
The dock was piled high with lumber and barrels of oil, and by the time
the firemen got there was burning fiercely in a dozen places.
“Here’s an all night job, boys,” muttered one of the men. “And
something hot, too.”
The oil made a fearful blaze and a roaring which attracted thousands to
the scene.
As the burning barrels burst, the oil floated out into the river and
set fire to several small craft which could not be gotten out of the
way quick enough.
Of course the river and harbor fireboats came to the scene, but they
had their hands full with boats, so that the fire on the dock itself
was left almost entirely to the land department.
Larry helped to stretch several lines of hose onto the dock and did his
full share at the front. It was hard work, and by midnight everybody
was all but exhausted. Yet the firemen had to stick to their duty, and
they did, in the face of a heat which was fairly blistering.
“My, but this is a corker,” gasped Larry, as he ran back to get a
whiff of cool air. The sparks burnt him on the neck and the eyebrows,
and they would have burnt his clothing had he not been saturated with
water. The smoke caused the tears to run down his cheeks in streams.
“It’s a big one,” answered the foreman. “We’ll do well to keep it from
spreading.”
To the north of the dock was a long basin, separating that dock from
the next. In this basin several vessels had been lying, but all had
escaped save one, a two-masted schooner, of the square, old-fashioned
type.
The schooner now took fire above, her masts and tarred ropes burning
like so many huge torches and fiery wands.
“She’s a goner,” muttered Larry, as he saw the fire descend to the deck
and begin to lick up the tiny forecastle.
Of a sudden there came a loud cry from the schooner, as a sailor rushed
from the cabin.
“Save me!” roared the sailor, who had been sleeping so soundly he had
heard nothing of the conflagration.
Scarcely had he spoken when a number of barrels of oil close to the
edge of the dock began to explode. The burning fluid was carried in all
directions, and soon the whole forward part of the schooner’s deck was
in flames. The sailor went shrieking back to the cabin, thinking his
escape cut off.
“He must be saved,” cried the chief of the fire department, who had
come on the scene.
He called for volunteers, and Larry and another fireman named Burnam
stepped forward.
There was no time to argue the matter, and in a trice both our hero and
Burnam were making their way toward the schooner.
They had to leap over a stream of burning oil to gain the deck. The
smoke was thick, and the heat more intense than ever.
Keeping close together, they ran into the cabin and found the sailor
on his knees praying to Heaven that he might be spared the torture of
being burnt alive.
“Come quick!” cried Larry, and caught the dazed man by the arm.
“But the fire—it is all around the ship!” gasped the seafaring man.
“No—there is one way to escape—but you must hurry, or it may be cut
off,” said Burnam.
Together they got the sailor to the deck. The fire had now reached
another stack of barrels and again the oil was popping loudly and
sending the sheets of flame in all directions.
Then of a sudden came a heavy explosion, which lifted the schooner high
in the air. Down she came with a loud splash, and then began to sink.
CHAPTER XX.
THE MAN LARRY SAVED.
“There goes the schooner!”
“See, the burning oil is closing in all around her!”
“That sailor’s lost, and so are the two firemen!”
Such were some of the cries as the schooner began to sink.
It must be confessed that Larry was thoroughly alarmed, for he well
knew the peril of the situation.
Bang! bang! went the bursting oil barrels, and he felt the oil touch
his clothing. Once the flames should reach him he would become a human
torch!
“We’ll have to swim for it!” he gasped, and in another instant all
three leaped into the river and passed out of sight.
Down into the cooling water went Larry. He still retained his hold on
the sailor, but Burnam let go and swam to save himself.
When Larry and the sailor came up they were a good thirty feet from the
burning dock. The sailor clung frantically to the young fireman, for
the fire had rendered him unable to think clearly.
[Illustration: “With a Groan He Turned Over in Our Hero’s Arms and
Became Unconscious”]
“Save me!” he spluttered, as they bobbed around in the midst of the oil.
“Down!” shouted Larry, as the floating flames rushed toward them, and
down they went once more.
But they could not keep below long, and when they came up again they
seemed to be in the very midst of the burning oil.
Larry was burned on the hand and on the shoulder, and the sailor also
suffered by inhaling some of the great heat.
With a groan he turned over into our hero’s arms and became
unconscious. “What’s to be done now?” thought Larry.
Should he let the man go and try to save himself.
“Not yet,” he thought. “I’ve still a fighting chance to save us both.”
Down he went with his burden. Then his head struck some spiling and he
passed to some spot where all was comparatively dark.
He was under the burning dock!
He felt along the timbers and presently pulled himself up on a number
of heavy beams. As he did this the burning oil swept in, and he had to
run away on the beams, dragging the sailor after him.
He was now safe from drowning, but hemmed in by the heavy timbers of
the dock, while the burning oil was lapping the water-soaked spiling in
an endeavor to consume them.
What was to do next? Eagerly our hero asked himself that question. He
was under the dock, and there seemed no means of getting out, excepting
to plunge into the water once more.
But the water on all sides was now a mass of burning oil, and a plunge
into it would mean certain death.
As well as he was able, Larry carried the sailor toward the land end of
the dock.
Here there was no fire overhead, and he could hear the footsteps of the
firemen as they ran around, laying their hose and doing other necessary
things.
He tried to attract their attention by pounding on the flooring over
his head, but the general noise was so great that no one paid any
attention to his signal of distress.
Presently the sailor gave a gasp and opened his eyes.
“Where—where am I?” he asked in a dazed fashion.
“We are under the burning dock,” answered Larry.
“Under the dock?”
“Yes.”
“Then let us get out.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any way out.”
“Are we like rats in a trap?” cried the sailor, anxiously.
“Pretty much; but keep cool and we may be all right yet,” answered our
hero, encouragingly.
His own hopes were low, but he did not wish to alarm the seafaring man
more than was necessary.
“Who are you?” was the sailor’s next question, as he grew calmer.
“I am one of the firemen.”
“Were you sent to save me?”
“The other fireman and myself volunteered for the work.”
“Where is the other fireman?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid he was lost in the burning oil.”
“You’re a brave one to come to my aid. Give me your hand,” and the
sailor held out his own.
They shook hands, and that hearty grip seemed to give fresh courage.
“Is there no way out at all?” went on the sailor.
“I can find none.”
Both took a careful look around and climbed over a number of beams and
boards. But the land end of the under side of the dock appeared to be
as tight as a box.
“Stumped!” said the sailor. “Pray Heaven they get that fire out before
it burns this far.”
“Amen to that.”
“What’s your name? I would like to know if ever we do get out of here,”
went on the sailor, after a painful pause.
“Larry Barlow. What’s yours.”
“Caleb Backstay. Barlow, eh? I used to know a man by the name of
Barlow.”
“Did you?” asked Larry, eagerly. “What was his first name.”
“Walter. He was a kind of inventor.”
“It was my father!”
“You don’t say?” Caleb Backstay showed his surprise. “Say did he ever
get back to New York?”
“Back? What do you mean?”
“I mean did he ever get back after those rascals robbed him, took him
to that ship bound for——”
The old sailor got no further in his interesting revelation.
There was a terrific explosion on the dock overhead, and the flooring
was torn up in every direction.
Down came some of the planking, almost on top of them, and in a twinkle
both found themselves caught and held as if in a vise.
Then the burning oil flowed toward them and both felt that they were
certainly lost.
CHAPTER XXI.
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
It was truly a perilous situation. The planking of the burning dock
wedged Larry and the sailor in on all sides, while the oil from the
bursted barrels flowed all around them.
“We’ll be burnt alive!” moaned the old sailor, as he clutched our
hero’s arm.
“We must get out, somehow,” panted Larry. “Come; follow me!”
With frenzied haste he threw one plank after another from him. His
hands were blistered, and likewise his face, while his hair was singed
more than once.
His actions gave the old sailor a little courage, and he too, began to
liberate himself.
“Oh, for a stream of water!” groaned Larry.
The words had scarcely been uttered when spat! the water from one of
the hosepipes hit him fairly in the breast, knocking the wind out of
him. But the water was just what was wanted, and it revived both Larry
and the sailor greatly.
“Give me your hand,” said the young fireman.
“I—I can’t—my foot is caught!” was the answer.
Larry bent down and both tugged away at the beam which held the old
sailor’s foot a prisoner.
At last with a crack it gave way, and both found themselves free.
But the fire roared and crackled all around them, and they knew not
which way to turn.
The water continued to come their way, and soon it was lowered, thus
cutting a path through the burning dock for them.
They moved forward cautiously but with all possible speed. Larry was
afraid of some hole in the dock, into which they might go and be unable
to get themselves out again.
But Providence was with them, and at last only a small belt of flames
flared up between them and the safety beyond.
“Help, help!” cried the young fireman. “Play away this way!”
“By heavens, somebody is in there!” he heard in reply, and then the
water reached them once more, and another path was beaten down for them.
But the sailor could no longer stand.
“I’m done for,” he groaned, and, reeling, fell like a drunken man on
the burning flooring of the dock.
In a trice Larry had him in his arms. Then came a dash and a couple of
mighty leaps, and our hero fell at the feet of the firemen who were
fighting the flames at that point.
“Hullo! It’s Larry Barlow,” was the exclamation which went up.
“Is he dead?”
“No; but next door to it.”
“He has the sailor with him.”
“Where is Burnam?”
But poor Burnam was nowhere to be seen. As a matter of fact his leap
into the burning oil had cost him his life, and his half-burnt corpse
was found floating in the bay two days later.
The sailor was unconscious and Larry was too weak to stand, while
suffering intensely from his burns. An ambulance was summoned to the
spot and in this both were carried to the nearest hospital. There
Larry fainted from pain and did not come completely to himself until
several hours later.
The oil dock fire was one long to be remembered. Directly after Larry
left the scene the wind came up, and as a consequence the fire spread
in several directions.
A general alarm was sent out and the firemen had to work until the
afternoon of the next day before the gigantic conflagration was fully
under control.
Larry’s bravery in rescuing Caleb Backstay was the talk of both the
public and the fire department, and all of the daily newspapers took up
the matter, and some of them published pictures of our hero and the old
sailor.
“He’s a brave one, if ever I knew such,” said Larry’s captain. “He
ought to have a medal.”
“And he will have,” said Commissioner Paul Kessenger. “He’s one out of
a hundred, not but what all of our laddies are brave.”
During the following day Kate came to see Larry at the hospital.
“Oh, I am thankful you escaped!” she murmured as she gave him a
sisterly kiss. “Larry, you must be more careful in the future.”
“I only did my duty, Kate,” he answered, and tried to smile, but
the smile was a good deal of a failure, for his head was wrapped in
bandages.
A little later a messenger brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers. With
this came a card, on which was written:
“From your sincere friend, Mary Vern, trusting that you will soon
recover.”
“Bless Mary!” he murmured, as he smelt of the bouquet and placed the
flowers where he could look at them all the time. But when he looked he
didn’t seem to see the flowers—he saw Mary’s face.
The old sailor was worse off than Larry, and for a long while it was a
question whether he would live or die.
“I hope he lives,” said Larry to Kate a few days later, when he felt
more like talking. “I want to hear what he has to say about father.”
“Father!”
“Yes, Kate; he once knew father, and he started to tell me something
about him.”
And then our hero related what had been said under the dock.
“Oh, if he only does recover!” ejaculated the girl. “I must get the
hospital people to do their best for him.” And she did.
Two weeks later Larry found himself out of the hospital. He tried to
report for duty, but was told to go home for a week and rest up.
“You deserve it, Barlow,” said his superior. “What you did at that fire
will be a credit to you as long as you live.”
“Oh, stow it, captain; you would have done as much had you been in my
place.”
“I hope so; but still that doesn’t take away from your pluck. You’ve
got a backbone to be proud of.”
“Can I come back next Monday?”
“If you wish. But you needn’t report until Wednesday so far as I am
concerned.”
“Thank you.”
“You had better take it easy and let all your burns heal up perfectly.”
“I’ll take it as easy as I can. But I’m a pretty active fellow, you
must remember,” and Larry smiled feebly.
“I know it, Barlow. But there is a limit to all things. You keep
quiet,” and then the captain turned away.
Larry walked home slowly. He might have taken a street car, but thought
the journey in the fresh air would do him good.
He was within several blocks of the house, when on turning a corner, he
came face to face with Lank Possy.
The bully of Ferryville was on a sight-seeing tour, and was accompanied
by several city chums.
“Hullo, you!” cried Possy, and his face grew dark.
Instead of replying, Larry started to walk past Possy and on his way
home.
But the bully would not have it and caught him roughly by the arm.
“I’ve got an account to settle with you,” he cried, seeing that Larry
was alone and that he himself was backed up by two friends. “I’m going
to settle it now.”
CHAPTER XXII.
LANK POSSY VOWS VENGEANCE.
“Let me alone!” said Larry, quietly but firmly. He was in no humor for
arguing with the bully, nor was he in any physical condition to fight.
“I’ll let you alone after I am done with you.”
“Who is it, Lank?” questioned one of the city boys who was with the
bully.
“Larry Barlow, the good-for-nothing I told you about,” answered Possy.
“The chap who attacked you with a club?”
“Yes; I reckon I’ve got a chance to get square now,” muttered Lank
Possy.
The street was rather a quiet one, and only two old men and a few
children were in sight.
“I told you to let me alone,” went on Larry, steadily. “If you molest
me it will be the worse for you.”
“Will it?” sneered Possy. “Take that, you scamp!”
He struck at Larry’s head, but our hero managed to dodge the blow.
“Come on, fellows; let’s give him a good whipping!” cried the bully,
appealing to his friends. Then he struck at Larry again, hitting him a
severe blow on his burnt arm.
“You coward!” gasped our hero. “If I wasn’t just out of the hospital
I’d whip you fairly.”
“That’s a nice fairy story,” sneered Possy. “There’s another for you!”
Again he struck at Larry, but now our hero was on his guard, and warded
off the blow. Then he began to walk away as rapidly as possible.
He knew there was an engine house right around the corner, and was
certain he would find friends there.
Possy thought he was thoroughly frightened, not believing the hospital
story, and made after him, and so did the others.
The corner was gained and the three pounced upon Larry. But before
they could do anything a newsboy standing near got into the mix-up and
hauled Possy back by the tail of his coat.
“You leave Larry Barlow alone,” came in the shrill voice of little
Willie Morrison. “Don’t you dare hit him or I’ll call a policeman.”
“Good for you, Willie,” answered Larry, joyfully. Then he turned and
whispered something into the newsboy’s ear.
“All right, I will,” answered Willie, and he ran off as fast as his
short legs could go.
By this time Larry was surrounded by Lank Possy and his two friends.
He did his best to defend himself, but he was still weak, and his walk
toward home had almost played him out.
It was a mean advantage his enemies were taking of him, but for this
Lank Possy did not care. He would have half killed our hero had he not
feared the consequences.
But Larry was not to be downed without doing something to defend
himself.
Gathering what little remained of his strength, he hit Possy in the
nose, causing the blood to flow from that member.
But then the three roughs—for they can be called nothing more—got our
hero down flat on the pavement.
They were beating him most shamefully, when Willie Morrison returned,
all out of breath, and accompanied by two strapping firemen.
One of the firemen knew Larry and knew of our hero’s bravery and his
term at the hospital, and the way he sailed into Possy and his cronies
was astonishing.
Seeing this, the second fireman also took a hand, and inside of three
minutes the bully and his friends were more than beaten.
“Don’t—don’t kill me!” shrieked Possy, when one eye was closed and his
mouth was bleeding, as well as his nose. “Let up!”
“You scoundrels!” cried the fireman who knew Larry. “Clear out before
we give you some more!”
“I’ll git square!” shrieked Possy. And then as the fireman made another
dash at him he ran for his life.
The cronies of the bully were also suffering from bleeding noses and
loosened teeth, and they lost no time in hastening after their fallen
champion.
“You ran us into a nice mess, Lank!” growled one.
“That’s so,” growled the other. “What kind of a friend, are you,
anyway?”
“Oh, go to grass!” howled Possy in return. “If you don’t like it you
can do the other thing.”
“Don’t you get gay with me,” was the answer. “I wasn’t taking you
around for the fun of getting my nose punched.”
“Nor me to get my teeth knocked most down my throat,” put in the other.
“How did I know those firemen would come down on us?” demanded Possy.
“I thought we had him all to ourselves.”
“You ought to have known what you was doing.”
“See here, Sam Bowers, if you don’t like it you can go off on your own
hook.”
“That’s what I’m going to do.”
“So am I,” put in the second New Yorker.
Two minutes later they had left Lank Possy to himself. The bully swore
frightfully; then hurried off to a nearby cafe.
“I had an accident,” he explained. “Fell on the curb and hit my mouth
and nose,” and he had a waiter show him to a washbasin, where he fixed
himself up. Then he called for a glass of liquor with which to brace
himself up.
“I’ll get square with Larry Barlow!” he muttered to himself. “I’ll get
square—see if I don’t!”
In the resort were several men, some drinking at the bar and others
playing cards at a table in a corner.
Among the number was Check Sluggers, the man who had been a tool to
Martin Pollox for so many years.
As our readers know, Pollox was rather gentlemanly outwardly, moving in
high social circles, and he depended entirely upon Check Sluggers to do
his dirty and disagreeable work for him.
Since Larry had called at Pollox’s mansion, Mary Vern’s guardian and
Sluggers had met half a dozen times, and had tried to devise some
means of getting our hero out of their way without arousing suspicion,
especially the suspicion of Mary.
The oil dock fire had complicated matters somewhat, and Check Sluggers
was waiting till Larry should come out of the hospital ere a new move
should be made in the game against our hero.
As Lank Possy dropped into a seat at a vacant table, Check Sluggers
strolled up to him.
“Had an accident, eh?” he remarked.
“Yes,” answered Lank, shortly.
“Too bad. I fell once on the curb myself, and it gave me a nasty cut on
the lip.”
“Oh, I guess I’ll get over it.”
The two conversed for some time and had a drink together, and Lank
Possy finally mentioned that he was from Ferryville.
“Is that so?” queried Check Sluggers, with interest. “Know a fellow
from there named Larry Barlow?”
“Yes, I do,” and Possy started. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“N—no, I’ve only heard of him. Know him well?”
“Yes, I do,” growled Possy. “I know him too well. He and I are enemies.
If he’s your friend you had better not talk of him to me.”
Of course Check Sluggers was more interested than ever, and, being as
slick as he was unprincipled, he soon had Possy’s story in detail.
“That was rough on you,” he said, sympathetically. “Hang it all, I’d
like to help you get square,” he added.
“Would you?” and Lank Possy’s face brightened.
“Yes, I would—and I will. Just you let me think out a plan,” added
Check Sluggers.
And then he did think out a plan, but not for Possy’s benefit.
He thought to get Larry out of the way, and lay the blame of the
disappearance upon the bully’s shoulders, thus shielding himself and
Martin Pollox.
CHAPTER XXIII.
WHAT HAPPENED TO CALEB BACKSTAY.
Although Larry had a week to himself at home, he did not spend all of
the time there.
He and Kate were both anxious to learn more of what Caleb Backstay knew
of the past, and so three days after coming home he and his sister
determined to call at the hospital and see how the old sailor was
faring.
They found the sufferer propped up by pillows in his neat bed at the
end of a long ward, and glad to see the young fireman who had saved his
life.
“I shan’t never forget ye,” he said, as he gave Larry’s hand a warm
squeeze. And he smiled as Kate was introduced.
“I don’t wish to trouble you too much; you are not yet well enough to
stand it,” said Larry. “But you must know I am very anxious to hear all
you know concerning my father.”
“It ain’t a great deal as I can tell ye,” answered the old sailor,
reflectively. “Truth is, my mind ain’t none o’ the best and that fire
twisted me up badly. I reckon to be myself afore a great while, though.”
“You said my father had been robbed by some rascals who had afterward
carried him to some ship outward bound.”
“Yes, he was robbed and he was carried away to the Skylark.”
“The Skylark? What sort of a vessel was that?”
“A big trading schooner.”
“Where was she bound?”
“South America, I believe; I wasn’t sure. To tell the truth, when the
thing happened I was about half seas over. When I came around the next
day I was robbed myself.”
“Was my father drunk? Tell me plainly,” demanded Larry.
“Drunk? Not a bit of it. The men wanted him to drink with ’em, but he
wouldn’t.”
“Then he was carried off entirely against his own will?”
“To be sure he was.”
“Who did the work?”
“The captain of the Skylark—I forget his name—and two other men.”
“Do you know the other men?”
“Not by name.”
“Could you remember their faces?”
“I think I could. But don’t ask me now. My poor head’s too upsot for
it.”
Caleb Backstay showed plainly that he was exhausted, and Larry did not
question him any more, although more anxious than ever to learn the
details of the affair.
“We will come again day after tomorrow,” said the young fireman.
“All right, Barlow. I’ll tell ye all when I’m well enough,” murmured
Caleb Backstay.
Kate and Larry had brought some fruit for the sufferer, and, leaving
this, they departed for home.
“I reckon his story is a straight one,” said Larry, as he and his
sister walked along. “Poor father was carried off to sea against his
will.”
“Then he must be alive!” cried Kate.
“If the rascals who carried him off didn’t have orders to kill him.”
“Oh, Larry, do you think that possible?”
“If he is alive why didn’t he return to New York after the trip was
over?”
Kate’s face fell.
“That is true. But he may have escaped. He may be somewhere in South
America with no money, you know.”
“If he was strong he could work his passage back.”
So they talked the matter over, but could reach no conclusion.
The two days passed slowly, and during that time Larry got back his
strength rapidly. He took the second trip to the hospital alone, Kate
remaining behind to look after Mrs. Morrison, who was ill.
To our hero’s intense surprise, Caleb Backstay had left the hospital.
“Left!” he ejaculated to the attendant who brought him the news.
“Yes, sir.”
“But—but he said nothing of leaving two days ago. He didn’t seem able
to leave.”
“Some rich friend took him away in a coach.”
“Some rich friend? Did you learn where to?”
“Somewhere in Harlem, I believe.”
Our hero was nonplussed, and his face showed it.
“Did he leave any word for me?”
“No, Mr. Barlow. He—that is, I don’t know as I ought to tell of it.”
“Of what?”
“Well, to me the whole thing looked rather peculiar. Mr. Backstay
wanted to leave word, but his friend said he could send word later.”
“Oh! And has any word come?”
“Not yet.”
“Did the friend leave any name?”
“Robert Brown.”
“And that is all you know?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When did Backstay leave?”
“This morning.”
Larry could learn no more, and, sick at heart, he left the hospital.
His hope of learning the particulars of his father’s disappearance was
now dashed to the ground.
“The whole thing looks suspicious to me,” he reasoned. “I had no idea
Caleb Backstay had rich friends here.”
Our hero’s suspicions were correct. The sudden taking away of the old
sailor from the hospital was the work of Martin Pollox.
Pollox had read with much astonishment about Larry’s bravery at the
oil dock fire, and it had amazed him to learn that the sailor who was
rescued was Caleb Backstay.
“That man!” he exclaimed. “That man who knows so much about the
abducting of Walter Barlow. And I thought he had gone away from New
York for good.”
With much anxiety he watched the recovery of both Larry and the old
sailor.
Then to Check Sluggers he delegated the task of getting our hero out of
the way, while he took it upon his own shoulders to do for Backstay in
such a fashion that the old sailor could not make use of his knowledge
of the past.
He sent Backstay a letter stating that an old friend, a sea captain,
wanted him to come to Harlem and be cared for. At this new place he
should have every comfort.
Caleb Backstay was too weak, mentally and physically, to refuse the
offer, and so left the hospital without a protest.
He was driven over to the East Side to a cheap boarding house, and
here, late at night, he found himself face to face with Martin Pollox.
“I wanted to be your friend, Backstay,” said Pollox, “but you have been
talking too much for your own good.”
The old sailor was startled, but he was helpless to do anything for
himself.
“Send me back to the hospital,” he pleaded, feebly.
“I cannot do that,” answered Martin Pollox. “You would tell Larry
Barlow too much.”
“What do you know of what I have said?”
“If you must know, I have had my spies around. You must quit New York
at once.”
“But I can’t move.”
“I am going to put you on board ship. An ocean voyage will do you good.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“But go you shall. The Red Rover sails tomorrow afternoon for the
Sandwich Islands, by way of Cape Horn, and you shall sail on her. It
will be a long trip, I admit, but that can’t be helped.”
In vain Caleb Backstay protested.
“I have made up my mind to this, and I am not to be turned aside,” said
Martin Pollox.
That very night old Caleb Backstay was transferred to the Red Rover and
the ship sailed away from New York at the time mentioned.
Thus was one link in the chain of evidence Larry had been forging
broken.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE TENEMENT HOUSE PLOT.
Larry went back to his life as a fireman in a very serious mood. He
could not imagine what had become of Caleb Backstay, and the fact that
he received no word from the old sailor only served to deepen the
mystery.
“I am half inclined to believe our enemies have spirited him away,”
he told Kate. “But I can’t prove it, so there is no use of accusing
anybody.”
For several weeks Larry was kept too busy at his work to think of
anything else. An ordinary fireman in New York has to respond to from
three hundred and fifty to four hundred and fifty calls in a year, and
these calls are frequently bunched, so that on more than one day our
hero went out three, four and even five times, and got soaked through
and had to change his clothing from head to foot. This is the true
slavery of a fireman’s life, and a worker has to be about as tough,
physically, as a car-horse to stand it. Some of those who are not as
strong as they look to be, break down utterly before the first year is
over.
The regular fireman gets but little time to himself, usually some of
his meal hours, one night a week, and about one day a month, unless he
gets other time by special permission, as in the case of those who are
suffering from the effects of service.
What little time Larry had to himself he spent with Kate. Sometimes
he would take her to a concert or to the theater, and at others
he would work over his extension ladder model. The model was now
somewhat improved—he having got some new pointers since joining the
fire department—and was almost ready to be placed in the hands of a
reliable patent agent.
“It ought to bring us in a small fortune,” he said to his sister.
“If it does, you must promise me one thing, Larry,” Kate returned.
“What is that?”
“That you will give up being a fireman. The risk is too great.”
“Oh, I don’t mind the risks, Kate; I rather like them. But if the
patent is a success, I guess I’ll be in for spending all my time on
other inventions, and I’ll have to give up being a fireman on that
account.”
“And then I suppose you’ll marry pretty Mary Vern!” she laughed.
At this Larry got very red.
“She won’t have me, I’m thinking,” he returned, and started to walk off.
“Won’t she?” called Kate after him. “Well, if she don’t want you, don’t
you dare to ask her, that’s all.”
Unknown to Larry, Check Sluggers and Lank Possy were hanging around the
fire house, trying to get their chance at our hero on the sly.
One plan of Slugger’s had failed, and now he was trying to work a new
wrinkle.
He had taken rooms in a big tenement house, the lower rooms of which
were mostly empty.
After securing the rooms and fixing his plot with Possy, he went down
in the cellar of the tenement one night and started up a lively blaze.
The alarm reached the fire-house just as Larry, who was off watch that
night, was going to bed.
“One of our boxes!” murmured Larry to himself, and leaping from the
bed, jumped into his boots, putting on his clothing at the same time.
Then on went his hat, and he slid down the brass pole like greased
lightning. The horses were already in place and soon they were out into
the raw night, for fall was now coming on.
Down the silent street clattered the three horses, and as the engine
swayed from side to side over the uneven pavement, our hero managed to
slip on his coat.
“The third fire today,” muttered one of the laddies. “Never knew it to
miss.”
He meant that there was never a second fire without a third. Many
believe this old saying true, but I hardly think it is.
At last the tenement was gained, and the hose was quickly stretched
from the hydrant on the corner. Other engines were coming, and also a
hook and ladder company, and soon all was bustle and excitement.
Larry’s first duty was to go into the cellar, where the fire was
burning fiercely in the rear. It was warm work, and soon he had to go
out to get some fresh air.
Suddenly a man wearing a slouch hat drawn far down over his brow
brushed up against our hero.
“Safe mine vife!” he whispered, in something of a German dialect. “She
vos on der top floor of de house!”
And then the man disappeared in the crowd.
“By jinks, that voice sounded familiar!” mused Larry. Yet he did not
realize the truth, that the fellow who had spoken to him was Lank Possy
in disguise.
Thinking the man might be somewhat deranged in his mind because of the
fire, Larry hurried up the front stoop of the house.
“Where are you going?” asked Randall.
“A man told me there was a woman at the top of the tenement—I’m going
up to make sure.”
And away went Larry before anybody could stop him.
Lank Possy followed, for as yet the fire had gained no headway at the
top of the house.
Stairs after stairs was climbed by our hero, and at last he stood on
the top floor in the semi-darkness.
He tried one of the doors, and entered a room in which a dim light was
burning.
As he did this, Lank Possy gave a peculiar whistle. Larry did not
notice the whistle at the time, although he remembered it later.
Seeing nobody in the room he had entered, our hero passed on to the
next apartment. Suddenly he felt somebody at his shoulder.
He turned in time to catch a dim, uncertain look at Check Sluggers, and
then down upon his head came a swift blow from an iron bar.
It was Larry’s helmet which saved him. Otherwise his skull must have
been crushed in.
“What are you up to?” he gasped, and caught the bar.
Then Possy came behind him and tripped him up.
“Down with the rat!” hissed Check Sluggers, and pulling the bar away,
hit Larry a glancing blow on the back of the head.
“Don’t!” he groaned, but Sluggers only laughed at his appeal.
“We’ll fix ye!” he cried.
Again the bar was raised, and this blow made Larry go down as if shot.
“Good!” cried Sluggers. “That was a dandy!”
“Now what shall we do?” asked Lank Possy, in a trembling voice. “There
may be others coming up.”
“I’ve got it all fixed,” answered his companion in crime. “See that
closet?”
He pointed to one corner of the room.
“Yes.”
“We’ll lock him in that.”
“But——”
“No buts now, Possy. Catch hold, and be quick about it!”
Both caught hold of our hero’s motionless form and dragged it to a
clothing closet. He was bundled in roughly, and then Check Sluggers
closed the door and locked it.
“That settles you, Larry Barlow,” he cried, and threw the key away.
“But the fire may not reach this far,” said Possy. “The engines are
already hard at work.”
“The fire will reach this far,” chuckled Check Sluggers; “now run and
get to the roof of the next house just as soon as you can.”
As Possy began to climb out of a hallway window, Sluggers lit a match
and, from the doorway, threw it into some scattered straw on the floor.
For one brief instant there was but a tiny light. Then followed a
flash, and in a moment the room was ablaze from end to end. The man ran
after Possy with all of his might.
Sluggers had made his calculations with care. He knew all about the
tenement next door and had rightfully calculated that all the tenants
would be in an uproar because of the fire.
With a quick leap Possy gained the window next door, and let himself
into a room which was just being vacated.
Sluggers came after him.
“We’ve had a narrow escape!” cried Sluggers to a man who was carrying a
trunk downstairs. “I can tell you, it don’t always pay to try to save
your things.”
“Well, I’m going to save this trunk,” answered the man, doggedly, and
then he paid no more attention to Sluggers or to Possy.
In a moment more the two rascals were down the several stairs and out
into the street. Then both pushed their way through the gathering crowd
and left the vicinity as fast as their legs could carry them.
CHAPTER XXV.
OUT OF A FIRE TRAP.
“Where am I?”
Such was the question which Larry asked himself upon regaining his
senses after being struck down by Check Sluggers.
For the moment he could not think. But then, like a flash of lightning,
the terrible truth burst upon him—the tenement fire, his going to the
top floor to look for the woman, and the attack by Sluggers and Lank
Possy.
With his head aching as if to split open, he staggered to his feet. His
hands touched the walls of the closet, and in a trice he realized the
full extent of his direful situation. He was a prisoner in the burning
building.
Already the flames were crackling merrily in the room beyond, for the
straw had done its work only too well. The thin columns of smoke were
coming in through the cracks of the door, and made him cough.
“If I want to save myself, I’ve got to do it quickly,” he thought,
dismally. “Another few minutes and it will be too late!”
Yet what should he do? The door was heavy and refused to budge,
although he put all his force against it.
He felt around the closet. The walls were of plaster, and as hard as
plaster walls usually are. But even here there might have been hope,
had not one side wall and the back rested against the side and back of
the house, and the other side rested against a brick chimney. To push
through a wall was, therefore, out of the question.
Next he felt of the floor, hoping to find a loose board which might
enable him to drop into the room or closet below.
But the floor was perfect, much more so than floors in tenement houses
usually are.
There was now but one thing more to try—the ceiling. But how should he
get to it?
There was a good-sized door-knob to the door, and by bracing his
hand against the back of the closet he succeeded in mounting so that
he could put his foot on the door-knob. Then he raised his hands up
eagerly.
Joy! there was a trap there, communicating with a blind garret used to
store away odds and ends of old junk. In a jiffy he had the trap raised
and was crawling up into the blind garret, which was but three feet
from beams to roof. Flooring there was none.
The smoke was coming up fast now, but he did not falter, for he
realized how precious every instant was. In his pocket he carried what
nearly every New York fireman carries, a candle and some matches.
With haste he lit the candle and gazed around the roof, and at last
found what he was looking for, a scuttle. It was hooked from the inside
and the hooks were rusty and hard to budge.
By this time our hero was all but overcome, and with his hands on the
hooks he swayed back and forth like a drunken man.
“I—I won’t—get out!” he panted.
But then he thought of home, of his sister Kate, and of beautiful Mary
Vern, and fresh courage came to him.
With a yank he brought loose one of the hooks, and another followed.
Then, with all of his remaining strength, he shoved upon the scuttle.
It flew upward and fell back on another part of the roof.
He was free!
Oh, how good the night air tasted as he shoved his head through the
opening. The smoke was all around him, and the fire glared upward as if
ready to devour him, but here at least was some fresh air, and he drank
it in as if it were nectar.
As soon as he felt able he stood up on the roof and gazed around him.
The fire was coming up on all sides, so that escape by going below was
out of the question.
On one side of the tenement was the heavy brick wall of a factory
towering thirty feet above the roof.
The firemen were just coming up there, but there was no telling how
long it would be before he could call to them for a ladder or a rope.
He looked to the other side, and saw the other tenement. There was
an alleyway five feet wide here, but nothing daunted, he leaped the
distance and came down on the next roof in safety.
To get into one of the windows was equally easy, and soon he was making
his way to the ground floor. The people in the tenement thinking
nothing of this, as he was in his uniform.
[Illustration: “He Leaped the Distance and Came Down on the Next Roof
in Safety”]
“Did you find the woman?” was the first question asked of him.
“No woman there,” answered Larry, and just then he said no more.
But he was too exhausted to work, and begged to be excused from further
duty.
The permission to retire was readily given and he drew out of the crowd.
He felt like going home, but wondered if Check Sluggers and Lank Possy
were still around.
“They meant to get rid of me for good,” he reasoned. “I wish I could
hand them both over to the police.”
But though he remained in the vicinity of the fire until it was out, he
saw nothing of his enemies.
This was not to be wondered at, for as we already know, as soon as
they had left the burning building, Sluggers and Possy had quitted the
vicinity.
“He’s done for!” said Sluggers, when they were several blocks away.
He had glanced back to see that the tenement was blazing fiercely in
several places.
“A good job done!” returned Lank Possy, but even as he spoke the
bully’s teeth chattered so that he could scarcely frame the words.
“You’re losing your nerve,” laughed Check Sluggers. “Come in and have a
drink.”
Possy was willing, and they entered a resort where Sluggers was well
known.
Here Sluggers had several drinks, while Possy drank so much that he was
soon so intoxicated he could not stand.
He tried to forget Larry and the awful deed he had committed, but it
was all in vain; and even when they took him upstairs and placed him on
a couch he groaned and tossed dismally for hours.
“He ain’t got no backbone at all!” said Check Sluggers. “I wish I had
him out of my way.”
Sluggers watched eagerly for the first of the morning papers, to see
what might be said about Larry’s disappearance.
When he did get the paper, he found only a small notice was accorded
the tenement house fire, and nothing at all was said about the
disappearance of any of the firemen.
“They must have missed it,” he thought and then bought the other papers
as they appeared, but could, of course, find nothing of what he hoped
to see. He grew very pale. Had Larry escaped, after all?
“If he did, I’ll have to quit New York,” was what he told himself. “If
I don’t, he’ll have me arrested on sight.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
WHAT MARY VERN HAD TO TELL.
When returning from the fire, Larry told his captain of what had
occurred. Captain Barwick listened with keen interest.
“You ought to have those rascals locked up, Larry,” was what he said,
when our hero had finished.
“You are right, captain; but I must find them first. Will you let me
off today?”
“Yes.”
As soon as he had changed his clothing, Larry got a mouthful to eat and
started off for the tenement where Check Sluggers lived. He thought the
rascal might possibly go home, but he was doubtful.
When he got to the tenement a surprise awaited him. Mrs. Sluggers had
left her husband for a prolonged stay with some relatives in Brooklyn.
The home was broken up and the furniture sold, and what had become of
Check Sluggers nobody knew.
Then Larry went back to where the fire had occurred, and by diligent
inquiries learned that it was really Sluggers who had rented the top
rooms, although he had done so under an assumed name.
“It was a pre-arranged plot, no doubt of that,” muttered our hero to
himself. “Now, as I escaped, he’ll take good care to keep out of sight,
and so will Lank Possy.”
Larry’s next move was to write to Gus Romer, his old friend at
Ferryville, telling him of what Possy had done, and asking that the
bully be arrested on sight.
To this, word came back that Possy was wanted in Ferryville for having
stolen some money from the Printing Press Works’ bookkeeper, and that
nobody there knew what had become of the bully.
Here Larry was compelled to rest the case, for there seemed nothing
more to do. The police were, however, notified, and they said they
would keep a lookout for Sluggers and Possy.
Our hero felt morally certain that Martin Pollox was at the bottom of
the whole affair, but how was he to prove it?
“He is rich and influential, and if I get him into court without
a clear case, he’ll only make trouble for me,” was the way Larry
reasoned. “I’ll lay low and try to get to the bottom of this case
before I do anything openly.”
Larry was anxious to learn how Mary Vern was faring, and one day, when
there was a special excursion to Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, he had
Kate take in the trip.
“It will do you good,” he said. “And I wish you would hunt up Mary
Vern, if you can.”
“I certainly shall,” answered Kate.
The excursion left Jersey City at eight o’clock in the morning and came
back at ten in the evening, thus giving the excursionists about five
hours at the beach.
It was Larry’s evening off, and he went over to Jersey City to meet his
sister on her return.
He found Kate much disturbed, and with good reason.
“Did you see Mary Vern?” he asked, eagerly.
“I did.”
“And what did she have to say?”
“She said at first that she never wanted to see or hear of you again.”
“What?” and Larry was so amazed he was afraid he had not heard aright.
“Larry, did you send her several letters lately?” asked Kate, anxiously.
“I—I don’t know as I ever sent her a letter.
“There! I was sure I was right!” and Kate’s face brightened.
“But what is the matter?”
“At first Mary didn’t want to talk of you; but I had better start at
the beginning, hadn’t I?”
“Of course. But don’t make it too long, Kate; I want to find out about
the letters.”
“Well, in the first place, after I got to Asbury Park I had hard work
to find the girl. She and Laura Pollox had moved to a private boarding
house called the Silver Spray Home, on Third Avenue.”
“But you found her?”
“After looking around for over an hour. Then, when I got to the
boarding house, I met Laura Pollox, and as soon as she found out who I
was, she said I couldn’t see Mary under any circumstances. She said
your conduct was disgraceful, and I mustn’t see her on that account.”
“But you did see her, you said. You had that picture from the paper,
didn’t you?”
“How impatient you are! Not in the boarding house. I met her on the
board walk, fronting the ocean, by accident.”
“Wasn’t she glad to see you?”
“Not at first. She said she never wanted to see you or hear of you
again, as I told you at first.”
“But why not—don’t keep me in suspense any longer, Kate,” pleaded our
hero.
“It came out after a while, although she didn’t want to talk about it
at first. It seems she got several letters, signed with your name. She
didn’t have the letters with her, but she said they were very common
kind of letters, in which the writer wanted her to leave Asbury Park
and join a theatrical company playing some sort of fire play on the
road. The letters were written in the style calculated to make her
disgusted with you, and, of course, Laura Pollox had gotten hold of
them, and given Mary a lecture for corresponding with you, and all
that.”
“Didn’t you tell her I wasn’t in the theatrical business; that I was
still a fireman, and expected to remain one?”
“I did, and she couldn’t understand it.”
“It’s another one of Martin Pollox’s schemes to get me out of his way,”
cried Larry, wrathfully. “I wish I could send her word and tell her the
truth.”
“You can, Larry. I told her I was sure you hadn’t sent the letters.
Then she said, if you had not, you could write her a letter about it,
and send the letter in care of May’s stationery store on Asbury Avenue.
If you do that, it won’t fall in the Polloxs’ hands.”
“I’ll write her this very night. Did she say anything about how the
Pollox were treating her?”
“She said Laura Pollox watched her very closely, so that it was hard
work to get away from her.”
“It will be harder than ever, now you have been down there, I am
afraid. I tell you Martin Pollox is playing a deep game all around. I
wish I could expose him.”
“All in good time, Larry; you mustn’t be impatient,” answered Kate,
trying to cheer him up.
As soon as they reached their home, our hero sat down and penned a long
letter to Mary, telling her of what Kate had said, and stating that he
knew absolutely nothing of any letters being sent to her heretofore in
his name. He also told of the attempt that had been made upon his life
at the tenement house fire, and mentioned the case of Caleb Backstay,
and the old sailor’s mysterious disappearance. He did not hesitate to
lay all the fault upon Martin Pollox, and warned the girl to beware. He
added that if she needed a friend she must not hesitate to call upon
him.
Then he posted the letter, never dreaming of the strange results which
were to follow in the wake of this communication.
CHAPTER XXVII.
FACE TO FACE WITH A LION.
Once more Larry Barlow went back to his duties as a fireman.
For several days nothing out of the ordinary occurred. Of course
there were the usual number of alarms, but none of the fires were of
importance, and in some cases the alarms were false ones.
The life was not without its fun, for one afternoon there was a blaze
in an East Side snuff factory and Larry and his fellow workmen nearly
sneezed themselves to death putting it out.
“Never sneezed so much in my life before,” said Larry to Kate,
afterward. “Thought the roof of my head was coming off.”
“Never mind, Larry,” she answered, with a laugh. “That ought to keep
you from getting catarrh for ten years,” and this answer made him
laugh, too.
Larry waited impatiently for some word from Mary Vern, but none came.
“Perhaps she never got my letter,” he thought, dismally. “Or maybe she
won’t believe me and thinks me a regular tough.”
And he heaved a mountainous sigh that meant a good deal.
One morning about four o’clock the alarm rang for a fire on one of the
avenues. It was in Larry’s watch, so he had no clothing to slip on and
he was ready as soon as anybody to leave the engine house.
It was now growing quite cool and the run to the fire was bracing to
the last degree. But Larry did not mind the air, for his exposure was
making him as tough, physically, as a pine knot.
The fire proved to be in a long row of stores and in a barn-like
structure in the rear.
One of the stores was given over to the sale of birds and small
animals, and the barn-like structure in the rear was devoted to large
wild animals, which were sold to menagerie keepers and circus people.
Only a few days before a vessel from South Africa had brought in a
consignment of lions and other wild beasts, and these were all housed
in the rear structure.
The howling of the wild beasts was fearful to hear, and as the fire
drew closer to them they became frantic and did all in their power to
escape the peril which threatened them.
“This is something out of the ordinary,” said the captain to his men.
“You want to be careful. If one of those wild beasts gets loose he may
take it into his head to chew somebody up.”
The owner of the wild animals was very anxious to save the stock, and
as quickly as he could he brought out cages on trucks, so that the
animals might be taken from the building.
It was perilous work to transfer the animals to the cages, especially
those which were extra frightened.
Larry was working at the front of the stores, but after a while he was
ordered to the roof of one of the buildings. The fire was spreading
here, and the chief wished to cut it off before it leaped an alleyway
in the rear.
As usual it was hot and trying, and some of the firemen were overcome
by the smoke. Larry worked like a beaver until almost exhausted, then
went to the edge of the roof for air.
As he was standing on the edge a stream of water came over the top of
the building, striking him squarely in the back.
Over the edge he went, and it looked as if he must be hurled to the
pavement below.
But he put out his hands, and by pure luck caught hold of a ladder
nailed to the side of the barn-like building in which the wild animals
were caged.
The ladder was burnt away at the bottom, and so there remained nothing
for him to do but to crawl to the top and get on the roof of the animal
building.
The roof was old and shaky, and the whole building should have been
torn down years before.
As our hero moved around he felt something give way beneath him, and
before he could save himself he dropped ten feet or more to the upper
flooring of the barn-like structure.
Here were a number of large cages, the majority of which were empty.
But one cage held a magnificent specimen of the South African lion,
and, on seeing Larry, the lion set up a loud roar of commingled fear
and rage.
“I suppose you’d like to get at me,” thought Larry. “But you shan’t do
it—not if I know myself.”
He started to go past the lion’s cage, but at that instant the monarch
of the forest hurled himself forward with all its strength at the
slatting of the cage.
There was a crack and a crash, and the splinters flew in all
directions. Then out tumbled the lion, and crouched at the very feet of
the young fireman.
There is no denying that Larry was scared. This was truly a situation
for which he had not bargained.
For an instant the lion remained silent, not knowing what to do with
his sudden liberty. He glared ferociously at our hero, in a manner
calculated to make the stoutest heart quail.
Larry did not know what to do. To run seemed out of the question, and
he knew not in what direction to turn.
The building was on fire in several places, and even if he escaped the
lion there was no telling if he could get out alive.
Turning his head he caught sight of a pitchfork resting against the
wall. He grabbed this and with it “charged bayonets” at the monarch of
the forest.
The movement seemed to take the lion by surprise. He swished his tail
ferociously and glared at our hero more cold-bloodedly than ever.
Then he made a mighty leap as if to crush Larry to atoms.
Our hero could not retreat, so he had to stand his ground. But the
pitchfork was in front of him, and he rested the end of the handle
against the wall behind him.
Crash! The lion hit the pitchfork and drove the handle directly through
the boarding behind Larry.
But the tines of the fork entered the lion’s throat and he uttered a
roar of rage, which fairly made Larry’s hair stand upon end.
It did not take the monarch of the forest long to pull himself off the
tines of the fork, and, this done, he prepared to make another leap.
The blood was flowing at a rapid rate, but still the beast was far
from being killed. His eyes seemed to start from their sockets. Could
he have got his jaws upon Larry he would have crushed our hero’s bones
like we crush the shell of an egg.
But the young fireman was on his guard, and again held the pitchfork
ready for use.
Seeing this the lion made a sudden leap to one side.
At once Larry retreated to the other end of the loft.
With a bound the beast came after him.
Larry made one wild lunge, and, by sheer luck, hit the lion again in
the throat.
The blow was a strong one, and the tines of the pitchfork entered at
one side and came out at the other.
The roar of the beast was deafening, and he leaped back suddenly,
carrying the pitchfork with him.
Larry was now practically defenceless.
It took the lion some time to free himself from the pitchfork, and the
loss of blood weakened him greatly.
Looking around Larry saw an opening in which ran a small elevator, used
to raise and lower the cages of the wild animals.
At the risk of being caught in the elevator machinery he leaped into
the opening and tried to descend to the floor below, by means of a rope
hanging in the elevator well.
He had descended but a few feet, when on looking up, he saw the lion
peering down upon him.
A moment later the wounded beast made a leap almost on top of him!
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE DECOY LETTER.
“I’m lost now!”
Such was Larry’s thought as the monarch of the forest prepared to leap
down upon him. Then as the lion came down, he closed his eyes in terror.
The big body hit him on the shoulder and the lion made a clutch for him
with his immense claws.
But the beast was faint from loss of blood, and in desperation Larry
managed to shake him loose.
The young fireman was scratched deeply on the arm and on the left
shoulder, but this counted for little or nothing considering the
greater peril of being torn to shreds by the wild beast.
Then the body of the lion shot down to the bottom of the elevator well.
A fearful crash followed, for the top of the burning elevator was
broken to bits by the heavy weight.
The wounded beast fell directly into the flames and was carried clean
down into the cellar of the burning structure.
From this spot he never escaped and after the fire nothing but his
charred bones were picked up.
As soon as he was free of the lion, our hero slid down the rope until
he came to the floor below the one upon which he had first encountered
the lion.
Here there was a doorway out of the elevator shaft, and he stepped
through this.
He had all he could do to drag himself to a nearby window.
Below, in the alleyway, were several firemen, and he called to them to
help him.
“It’s Larry Barlow!” cried one of the firemen. “He wouldn’t call out
like that unless he needed somebody.”
When two firemen came up the ladder they found him at the window in a
dead faint.
The ordeal through which he had passed had been a severe one and he was
at once removed to the fire-house and given medical attention.
The captain wanted him to go to the hospital, but he asked to be sent
home instead, and this was, later on, done.
The menagerie fire, as it was called, was one long to be remembered,
and all the newspapers spoke of it, and of what a task it has been to
catch those animals which had escaped.
The following week found Larry still at home, but feeling once more
very much like himself. Yet his shoulder was stiff and to go back to
duty was, consequently, out of the question.
“You just stay at home until you are all right,” said Kate. “Why,
you have done as much for the fire department in three months as the
ordinary fireman would do in three years.”
And it must be confessed that Larry was almost inclined to believe this
true.
During his spare time Larry looked over his model of an extension
ladder for the last time and then paid a visit to a reliable firm of
patent agents who had their offices on Broadway.
He was listened to with interest, especially when he told that he was
both a practical machinist and fireman combined, and his model was
examined by several experts.
“You have undoubtedly a first-class thing, Mr. Barlow,” said one of the
members of the firm. “This invention should do all that is claimed for
it.”
“And how soon can you get me a patent?”
“If your ideas are original we ought to be able to put the thing
through inside of six weeks or two months.”
“And what will the cost be?”
“Seventy-five dollars.”
“Must I pay in advance?”
“You can do as you please about that. Your patent will undoubtedly be
worth a good deal more than that sum.”
“Well, I hope so,” smiled our hero.
“The only thing is, after you have your patent, see to it that some
sharp speculators don’t swindle you out of it.”
“I’ll be on my guard.”
“The safest plan would be to go to some reliable steel construction
company and let them manufacture on a royalty—that is, paying you so
much on every ladder they sell.”
“But how can I keep track of every ladder sold?”
“That shouldn’t be very difficult, for such things are not like mouse
traps or puzzles that sell by the thousands. Each one of those ladders
ought to be worth several thousand dollars.”
“And what royalty ought I to get?”
“Ten to twenty-five per cent. of the selling price. On a two thousand
dollar ladder a royalty of three hundred dollars would be fair, to my
way of thinking.”
“It would be fine—if they could sell enough ladders,” cried Larry,
enthusiastically.
“Well, there are forty or fifty big cities that would undoubtedly use
such ladders,” replied the patent agent. “And a city like New York
ought to have several of them.”
When Larry went home to Kate with the news she was much pleased.
“If you could make three hundred dollars each on fifty ladders that
would be fifteen thousand dollars,” she said. “It’s a small fortune.”
“It would certainly be all right for one invention,” returned our hero.
“And while the construction company was selling the ladders you could
patent something else, Larry.”
“If I could find the idea.”
“Pooh! Your head is full of ideas, you know it is.”
“Well, yes, it is full of ideas. I have already a new nozzle in my
head, something that can be turned just as a fireman wishes it, and one
that will keep the fireman cool when he’s in a hot place. And then I’ve
got a patent axe in my mind, too, something entirely different from
what our firemen use.”
So the talk ran on, until they heard the postman’s shrill whistle in
the lower hallway.
“Barlow!” yelled the letter carrier. “Lawrence Barlow!”
“Who can be writing to us?” questioned Kate, and ran down to get the
letter.
It proved to be postmarked Asbury Park, and was written in a fine,
girlish hand.
“It’s from Mary Vern!” cried Kate.
“Let’s see it,” answered Larry, and as his sister handed him the
communication he grew red in the face.
“A love letter—and nothing for me, I suppose,” said Kate, slyly.
“Not much,” he murmured. “Come, let us both read it together,” and they
did.
The communication was a very brief one, and ran as follows:
“My dear friend:
“I received your letter and I thank you from the bottom of my heart
for the interest you have taken in me.
“I need your help very much, and I wish you would come to Perth
Amboy on Thursday evening, at eight o’clock. I will be there,
stopping at Casper’s boathouse, and then I will tell you what I
wish you to do for me.
“Do not tell anybody that you are coming, for Mr. Pollox has spies
everywhere and they will follow you if they can. I suppose he will
try to follow me up as soon as he learns I have left Asbury Park.
“Your sincere friend,
“MARY VERN.”
“P. S.—Please don’t disappoint me, Larry.”
The appeal for assistance went straight to our hero’s heart.
“She is in more trouble,” he said to Kate. “I must meet her and protect
her. Who knows but what old Pollox would kill her if he got the chance.”
“If you go, you must do so secretly,” returned Kate. “The spies may be
watching this house. Oh, what a rascal that man must be!”
The letter came on Wednesday afternoon, and on Thursday afternoon, at
about five o’clock, Larry set off for Perth Amboy.
Arriving at the ferry he crossed to the New Jersey side and then waited
until half-past six for a train bound for Perth Amboy, Asbury Park and
Point Pleasant.
As the summer season was now over the travellers to the seashore were
few and the car in which he sat was not one-third full.
The ride to Perth Amboy passed without special incident and he was
pretty well satisfied that he was not followed.
Never for a moment did he dream that the letter sent to him was a
decoy—that it had never been penned by Mary Vern.
Yet such was a fact. His letter to the unhappy girl had been found in
Mary’s bureau drawer by Laura Pollox, who had immediately turned it
over to her father.
The communication had not only made Martin Pollox furious, but it had
likewise frightened him, and he had immediately laid a plan to get our
hero out of the way.
“He shall follow in the footsteps of his father,” said Martin Pollox,
to himself, and called upon Check Sluggers to once more help him.
The plot was to get Larry to Perth Amboy and then kidnap him and place
him on a vessel bound for New Zealand.
The captain of the ship was Martin Pollox’s tool and he could be
depended upon to see to it that our hero would never again step foot on
land.
And our hero was walking straight into the trap, never for an instant
suspecting that anything was wrong.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE CAPTURE IN THE BOATHOUSE.
It was an easy matter for Larry to find out where Casper’s boathouse
was located, up the shore, some distance away from the center of Perth
Amboy.
His ride on the train had made him hungry, and as it was still early,
he stopped at a handy restaurant for a light supper.
He was just finishing the repast, when on glancing up, he saw a man
pass the doorway. It was Check Sluggers!
“Hullo! what does this mean!” he asked himself.
He was immediately suspicious, and as soon as he could pay his bill, he
hurried out of the restaurant.
But the place was near a corner, and when he got outside Check Sluggers
had disappeared.
“Can it be possible that Mary Vern was right and he followed me from
New York?” was the question our hero asked himself.
Even yet he did not suspect that the letter he had received was a decoy.
He was pretty certain Sluggers had not seen him, and now took a
roundabout way to reach the boathouse where he hoped to meet the girl
he wished to befriend.
It was a blustery night, as if a storm was brewing, and by
the time he gained the vicinity of the solitary building the big drops
of rain began to fall.
“It is odd that Mary should come to this forlorn place,” he reasoned,
“but I suppose she was so scared she really didn’t know what to do.
Poor girl, I wish I could take her right out of Martin Pollox’s power!
Well, she shan’t be harmed, not if I can help it.” And he set his teeth
grimly.
Reaching the boathouse he walked around it at first and then made his
way to the door, which stood partly open.
No one was in sight and he called out: “Mary! Mary Vern! Are you here?”
No answer came back, and he paused on the threshold, not knowing what
to do next. The very loneliness of the place now made him suspicious.
How had the girl learned of the boathouse? Was she acquainted in Perth
Amboy?
Slowly and cautiously he advanced into the boathouse until he was about
four feet inside the doorway. Then he called her name again.
The word had scarcely left his lips, when of a sudden a noose of rope
fell down from above, around his neck. There was a jerk, and in a
twinkle he was raised up on his tiptoes.
“Go slow now—we have him!” cried a strange voice, and then a man came
up behind Larry and caught his hands.
“L—let—go!” gasped our hero, but the words were little more than a
gurgle in his throat. He could not struggle, and still standing on
tiptoes, to keep himself from strangling, he had to submit to having
his hands bound tightly behind him. Then the rope slackened, so that he
might breathe freely once more, but he could not move around.
“You villain!” he ejaculated, as soon as he could speak. “What is the
meaning of this?”
“It means that you are at last in my power, Larry Barlow,” came in a
familiar voice, and Martin Pollox came down a ladder and confronted
the young fireman.
“Is this your plot against me?”
“If you must know, yes.”
“Where is Mary Vern?”
“Just where she was before, at Asbury Park,” chuckled Martin Pollox.
“Then she did not write that letter?”
“You are a fool to even ask such a question.”
“Well, now you have me in your power, what do you intend to do with
me?” went on Larry, trying to put on as bold a front as possible.
“You’ll learn that fast enough. One thing is certain—you shall not
cross my path again.”
“Are you going to have me carried off just as you had my father carried
off?”
“I am not here to answer your questions, Larry Barlow. You have
played your game against me and lost, and now you must suffer the
consequences.”
“I suppose your next move will be to get Mary Vern out of the way,”
said our hero, bitterly. “Martin Pollox, you are the most deep-dyed
villain I ever saw or heard of.”
“Don’t get complimentary, Barlow,” was the sneering return. “You are in
my absolute power, remember that.”
“That shall not silence me, Martin Pollox. You robbed my father, and
murdered him for all I know to the contrary. Now you want to get me out
of the way so that you can rob poor Mary Vern. But a day of reckoning
will come for you, don’t forget that.”
“Bah, boy, if you’re going to preach I won’t listen to you,” stormed
Pollox, but his face grew pale. “Conroy, see if Sluggers is around.”
At once the man who had first appeared on the scene ran out of the
boathouse.
As soon as he was gone, Martin Pollox began to go through our hero’s
pockets, confiscating everything of value.
“You won’t need these things,” he remarked, with a sickly grin on his
crafty face.
Presently Conroy came back. He was evidently a seafaring man, and rough
to the last degree.
“Sluggers is coming,” he said. “He sprained his foot on the rotten dock
above here.”
In a minute more Check Sluggers came in limping painfully.
“Nearly broke my ankle,” he growled. “I see you’ve got him anyhow.”
“Yes, we’ve got him,” answered Martin Pollox. “And now the quicker you
get him out of here the better.”
“All right,” answered Conroy. “But you had better come as far as the
boat.”
Conroy was an oyster pirate and in his younger days had been a coast
wrecker. He had done time in prison more than once, and was hardened to
the last degree.
The rope was taken from our hero’s neck and he was marched out of the
boathouse and up the shore.
It was now raining furiously and the rascals rightfully calculated that
no one living in that vicinity would be stirring.
With the three men against him, and with his hands bound tightly behind
him, Larry thought resistance would be foolhardy.
At last they gained a rowboat tied to a stake along shore. Our hero was
made to enter this craft, and Conroy took up the oars and began to pull
lustily out toward a big schooner which lay at anchor out of sight of
the land.
“Boat ahoy!” he cried at last, and an answering cry came back.
Then the rowboat came up to the schooner’s side and Larry was made to
climb to the deck.
“Take his things from him?” asked one of the men on the schooner.
“Yes, he hasn’t a thing in his pockets,” answered Martin Pollox.
“Very good.” The man turned to Larry. “Come with me.”
“Where to?”
“Don’t ask questions, but come.”
Larry wanted to resist, but before he could make the least movement,
Conroy grabbed him from behind and ran him over the schooner’s deck.
The forward hatch was open, and in a twinkle our hero was pushed down
into the black hold of the ship.
Then the hatch was closed and bolted and he was left to his fate.
CHAPTER XXX.
PETE JOHNSON’S REVELATION.
“Well, I am in a trap now, and no mistake!”
It was Larry who uttered the words, as he sat on a pile of old sacking
in the hold of the schooner. All was pitch dark around him, and the
only sound that reached his ears was the tramping of the sailors and
others overhead, coupled with the falling of the rain, which was coming
down as hard as ever.
Half an hour had passed since he had been so unceremoniously dumped
into the hold by the tool of Martin Pollox. During that time nobody
had come near him, and he imagined that Pollox, Sluggers and the man
called Conroy had quitted the ship, leaving him to the mercies of the
schooner’s captain.
“They’ll either get rid of me or carry me a good distance,” he thought,
dismally. “They won’t dare to take me anywhere where I can get back to
New York in a hurry.”
He now understood the deception which had been practiced upon him,
and his mind went back to Mary Vern. “She may be even worse off than
myself,” he muttered. “Martin Pollox wouldn’t hesitate to get her out
of the way if he could do it without arousing suspicion.”
So far our hero had not moved around the hold very much, but now he
commenced an examination of the place, to learn, if possible, if there
was any way of escape. He was in a desperate frame of mind, and willing
to run a big risk in order to obtain his liberty and square accounts
with his enemies.
Larry had not taken over a score of steps when he stumbled over the
body of a man lying full length over some flat packing cases. The man
gave a grunt and a snort.
“Wot fo’ yo’ disturbin’ ob me?” he demanded, in a thick negro voice,
and one that showed the speaker was just getting over a prolonged spree.
“Hullo! I didn’t know anybody was down here,” exclaimed Larry.
“Down whar?”
“Down in this hold.”
“Am I in de hold?” queried the negro, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
“You are.”
“How did I git yeah?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Do you belong to the ship?”
“Cos I does. Who is yo’?”
“I am a young fellow who was trapped on board and thrown down here for
safe keeping.”
“Phew!” the colored man let out a low whistle. “If dat’s so, yo’ am in
fo’ it. Captain Naxon ain’t no angel to deal wid, bet yo’ small change
on dat.”
“Is Captain Naxon the owner of the ship?”
“He’s de master. She’s owned by some rich folks yeah in Jersey.”
“What’s her name?”
“De Skylark.”
The answer came like a thunderbolt to our hero. The Skylark was the
name of the vessel in which his father had been carried off! Could this
ship be the same?
“If it is, I must do my best to bring Captain Naxon to justice,” he
muttered.
“Wot did yo’ remark?” asked the negro.
“Nothing,” he answered, shortly. “So this is the Skylark? Where is she
bound?”
“Fo’ South America. Don’t know de exact name of de port. Ma haid an’t
clear yet, nohow.”
“How long have you been on this ship?”
“Me? Why, I’se dun been aboadh of her nine or ten yeahs.”
“Indeed! Then you must know all of what has taken place during that
time.”
“I do know a lot ob things. But I don’t know it all—Captain Naxon am
putty sly wid himself.”
“What is your name? Mine is Larry Barlow.”
“Pete Johnson.”
“Do you remember a Walter Barlow who was shanghaied on board of the
Skylark some years ago?” went on the young fireman, anxiously.
The negro let out a low grunt of surprise, mingled with suspicion.
“Wot yo’ know ob dat man?” he asked, cautiously.
“He was my father.”
“Shoo now! Am dat really so?”
“Yes, and I want to know what became of him.”
“Reckon you’ll hab to ask de captain about it.”
“Don’t you know?”
“No”
“But you know he was taken on board against his will.”
“Dat’s right.”
“Was he thrown overboard?”
“No, he was taken off de ship when we stopped at Ponce, on de island ob
Porto Rico.”
“The captain took him ashore?”
“Yes, de captain an’ one of de sailors, Bill Harris—Bill’s dead now,
died of the South American fever.”
“You haven’t any idea what was done with my father?”
“I rackon he wasn’t killed. Da said sumt’in’ about takin’ him sumwhar.”
Pete Johnson could tell no more, and, indeed, it was only by a great
effort that he told Larry so much. Presently he gave a long yawn and
went to sleep again. Our hero rightly guessed that he had been brought
on board drunk, and tumbled into the hold to sober up.
While the negro slept, Larry felt in the man’s pockets and found what
he wanted—several matches. Lighting one of these, he found a bit of
tarred rope and made of it a torch.
With this light spluttering in his hand, he renewed his examination of
the hold from end to end and presently came upon a door across which a
piece of slatting had been nailed.
“If I can get that loose perhaps I can escape,” he reasoned, and,
putting down the light, began to look for something in the way of a
tool.
At last he found a long iron spike, and with this he pried the slatting
loose. The door was not locked, and by examination he discovered he
could open it with ease.
Our hero now felt that he must move with caution or else he would be
discovered and have his chance of escape cut short.
“I’ll keep the spike,” he said to himself, “and if anybody tries to
stop me I’ll brain him on the spot, if I hang for it.”
He opened the door slowly and noiselessly and found himself in a small
entryway, where a ladder ran up to another entryway leading to the
cabin of the Skylark. Blowing out his light he shut the hold door again
and ascended the ladder.
A moment later he found himself at the door opening into the cabin of
the schooner. A low murmur of voices reached his ears. In the cabin
were Martin Pollox, Check Sluggers, Conroy and Captain Naxon. They were
drinking, and smoking, and talking over their plans.
“It’s a good deal of money you all want out of me,” Martin Pollox was
saying. “Two thousand apiece means six thousand dollars.”
“Bah! that should be nothing to you,” answered Captain Naxon. “You will
make fifty times as much.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Check Sluggers, who had had his cue to
stand in with Pollox. “Martin won’t make so very much. I’m satisfied
with two thousand.” In reality Pollox had already promised him ten
thousand dollars.
“Well, I’ll take two thousand,” said Conroy. “But I want it in cash,
and by tomorrow.”
“That’s all right for you,” growled Captain Naxon. “But I want five
thousand and not a cent less. I did that job of years ago too cheap,
and I ain’t forgot it.”
“Make it three thousand,” suggested Pollox.
“No, it’s five thousand or nothing,” growled the captain. “And I want
it in cash, and by tomorrow, too.”
“You must think I am made of money,” grumbled Martin Pollox.
Nevertheless he at last agreed to give them what they demanded, and
then the whole party prepared to go ashore.
Larry listened to the talk with bated breath. His face was set and full
of determination.
“Martin Pollox, I have found you out at last,” he muttered. “And you
shall go to prison for what you have done, just as sure as you were
born!”
CHAPTER XXXI.
IN WHICH LARRY ACTS QUICKLY.
The men went on deck, leaving the cabin deserted. Before departing,
Larry, through a crack of the door, saw Captain Naxon put away a number
of papers in a locker at one side of the cabin.
As soon as he felt safe to do so, our hero stole into the cabin, opened
the locker and taking the papers, thrust them into the inner pocket of
his coat.
He was not certain, but he felt that the papers concerned himself and
his father.
As the rascals gained the deck, the young fireman heard Captain Naxon
order the rowboat brought around.
“Going ashore?” asked a strange voice.
“Yes.”
“What of the prisoner?”
“Leave him in the hold until I get back,” answered Captain Naxon.
At this Larry smiled grimly.
“I don’t think you’ll find me in the hold—even if you do ever get
back,” he said to himself.
Creeping to the level of the deck, Larry saw all hands at the side of
the schooner, watching the departure of the captain and the others in
the small boat.
The weather was clearing a little, and at a considerable distance could
be seen the twinkling light of Perth and South Amboy.
“If I was only on land,” he mused. “How can I get there?”
With the slyness of a cat he crept to the stern of the schooner. There
in the water rested a small rowboat, with oars stowed under the seats,
for the captain and the others were using a boat belonging to Conroy.
With his heart thumping wildly, our hero let himself down into the
rowboat. At a distance he could hear Conroy rowing, but the darkness
hid the other small craft from view.
It was but the work of a moment for our hero to unfasten the rowboat
and push as far as possible away from the Skylark.
Then he got out the oars and began to row with all the skill he could
command, which was saying a good deal, for Larry had frequently been
out on the river at Ferryville.
He took care to keep away from the other boat, but made out where his
enemies landed, by their voices. It was at the old boathouse where he
had been made a prisoner by Conroy and Martin Pollox.
He himself landed some distance away and then followed the four like a
grim shadow.
He soon learned that Martin Pollox and Sluggers were going back to New
York, the former to get the cash promised to Captain Naxon and Conroy.
The captain and the oyster pirate were bound for the cottage in which
the latter lived, down near the railroad bridge.
“So far so good,” thought our hero. “Now to examine those papers I
took, and then to get the police to help me.”
He walked up into the town and by the aid of a street lamp began to
look over the documents taken from the locker.
They proved to be some communications from Martin Pollox to the captain
concerning the carrying off of Walter Barlow. Pollox had signed only
his initials, but his handwriting was not disguised in the least.
By these letters Larry made out that his father had been taken to
Ponce on the Island of Porto Rico, and was now at a private asylum for
the insane somewhere in the interior of the island. Nothing was paid
for keeping him, as he was made to work out his board on a plantation
connected with the asylum.
“He can’t be insane!” muttered Larry. “It is a trick—a base trick to
keep him from returning to New York!”
“Hey, young fellow, you’re out kind of late, ain’t you?”
The voice was close to Larry, and turning he saw a policeman at his
elbow.
“Yes, I am,” he answered, “and I’m glad you came up. Where can I find
the police headquarters?”
“Why, anything wrong?”
“Yes, something is very much wrong. I want two men arrested without
delay.”
“What for?”
“For several crimes, including carrying me off to a ship against my
will.”
“Tried to shanghai you, did they?”
“Yes.”
The policeman quickly directed Larry to the headquarters, and here two
policemen were called into service, and the whole party set out for
Conroy’s cottage.
“Conroy’s a bad egg,” said one of the officers, as the party trudged
along in the wind and scattering rain. “He ought to have been arrested
on general principles long ago.”
“If they are doing any talking I would like to hear what is said before
we break in on them,” said Larry.
“All right.”
Soon the vicinity of the cottage was gained. A bright light burned in
the kitchen. They drew closer and discovered Conroy and Captain Naxon
sitting at the table, smoking, drinking and looking over some papers
Conroy had produced from a trunk.
“You ought to have stood out for more money, Jack,” the captain was
saying. “Pollox can pay it easily enough. You have a good grip on him.”
“I’ll get more out of him later on,” answered Conroy. “I ain’t like
you, I’m going to remain on shore.”
“I half wish I could remain behind,” said the captain, with a nod. “I’d
squeeze him, too. Why, he must have made a lot of money by getting
Walter Barlow out of the way.”
“He claims he hasn’t done nothing with that invention yet,” answered
Conroy. “He said the boy’s turning up knocked his plans all out.”
“Well, we’ve got the boy out of the way now.”
“Where are you going to take him?”
“Down to South America.”
“And after you get him there, what then?”
“Oh, I reckon he’ll fall overboard some dark night,” and the captain of
the Skylark laughed harshly.
Larry nudged one of the policemen.
“Do you hear that?” he whispered. “They are talking about me and my
father.”
“They are rascals, and no mistake,” was the guarded reply.
“You’ll have to be slick about it,” went on Conroy.
“I’ll manage it.”
“Why didn’t you pitch old Barlow overboard?”
“Pollox didn’t want it. He was afraid he would want Barlow to tell him
something about the inventions, and the man couldn’t do that if he was
dead.”
“Don’t Barlow ever kick?”
“I suppose so. I haven’t seen him in over a year now.”
The captain yawned, and changed the subject.
“Now, I guess we had better arrest them,” said Larry. “But be careful
they don’t get away. They’ll fight hard when they find themselves
cornered.”
Our hero had provided himself with a good club, and now, as the
policemen threw open the door of the cottage and entered, he followed.
“Hi, what’s up?” cried Conroy.
“We arrest you, in the name of the law,” answered one of the bluecoats.
“Betrayed!” roared Captain Naxon. “Betrayed! Whose work is this?”
“It is my work,” answered Larry, striding forward. “Officer, you had
better handcuff them both.”
“I will.”
“Not much!” answered the captain, and made a dash for the doorway. But
he had scarcely taken three steps when Larry brought the club down on
his head, knocking him senseless.
In a few seconds more Conroy was handcuffed. He swore like a pirate and
gnashed his teeth in rage. When the captain recovered, he, too, was
made a close prisoner.
Both prisoners wanted to know what Larry intended to do, but our hero
would give them no satisfaction. He ordered that the documents Conroy
had brought forth be taken to the station house as additional evidence
against the rascals.
Early in the morning Larry left for New York, one of the Perth Amboy
officers going with him.
“Now for Martin Pollox and Check Sluggers,” he said, grimly. “And
then we’ll soon sift father’s affairs and Mary Vern’s affairs to the
bottom.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
AN UNEXPECTED RETURN—CONCLUSION.
It is well said that strange happenings often bunch themselves, and so
it proved upon the present occasion.
As the train for Jersey City upon which Larry and the officer were
riding pulled into Elizabethport station, our hero caught sight of a
familiar figure lounging near the news stand.
“Well, I never!” he gasped. “Lank Possy!”
“Who is it?” questioned the officer.
“Lank Possy, the fellow who helped Sluggers at the tenement house fire.”
“You are sure?” asked the officer, who had heard our hero’s story in
detail.
“Positive.”
“Then he should be arrested.”
Just then a policeman hove into sight, and Larry ran out of the car and
called to him.
“Arrest that fellow!” he cried, and pointed at Lank Possy.
The bully of Ferryville was dumfounded on seeing Larry, but he quickly
recovered and started to run. But Larry was after him, and like a flash
he tripped the rascal up.
The Elizabethport policeman wanted to know what was the matter, and
Larry called the Perth Amboy officer to help explain matters.
Lank Possy begged hard to be let go, but Larry would not listen to it.
Possy was in tatters and looked like a tramp.
“I just came in from a tramp through Pennsylvania,” he said. “Ain’t had
a square meal in a month. What a fool I was to go wrong!” And he almost
began to blubber.
“Perhaps you can turn State’s evidence against Sluggers and the rest,”
suggested Larry, and in the end Lank Possy jumped at the chance. He
said he would go on to New York willingly, and the Perth Amboy officer
took him in charge.
As soon as the metropolis was gained, the party hurried to the police
station, and there Larry told his story again, and the Perth Amboy
officer told what he knew.
The police captain had heard of Larry’s gallant work as a fireman, and
listened to what was said with close attention.
“If your story is true, Martin Pollox is certainly a thorough villain,”
he said, when Larry had finished. “He must be arrested without delay.”
“That’s just what I want.”
“Do you want to go with the officers who make the arrests?”
“Yes. I want them to bring away those drawings which belong to my
father.”
“Very well, you shall go.”
Two experienced detectives were called in and matters were quickly
explained. Larry had had no sleep and no breakfast, but he did not
think of these things in the excitement.
When the party reached the Pollox mansion they found it apparently
closed up.
“It may be a bluff,” said Larry. “One of you had better go to the door
and ask to see Mr. Pollox on important business.”
“A good idea,” answered the leader of the detectives, and hurried on,
leaving Larry and the second officer crouching behind some stone steps
further up the block.
A servant answered the detective’s summons.
“Sorry, sir, but Mr. Pollox isn’t at home,” she said.
“And when will he be home?”
“I can’t say, sir.”
The servant closed the door again, and the detective joined Larry and
his fellow officer once more.
“We might——” he began, when Larry clutched his arm.
“Here he comes, down the street!” whispered our hero. “Check Sluggers
is with him. Make sure they don’t slip us. Sluggers can run like a
deer.”
They waited until the rascals were directly in front of the steps, and
then Larry confronted the pair.
“Stop!” he cried, and Martin Pollox and Sluggers fell back as if they
had seen a ghost.
“Yo—you!” gasped Pollox. “Whe—where did you—er—come from?”
“You know well enough, Martin Pollox,” answered Larry. “Officers, make
them both prisoners.”
“The game is busted!” muttered Sluggers, and started to run.
But one of the detectives was too quick for him. Then Pollox tried to
run also, but Larry and the second detective collared him.
“It is all a—a—mistake,” gasped Martin Pollox, when he was being
handcuffed.
“It’s too late to talk about mistakes now,” said Larry, coldly. “You
can think it over when you are doing time in prison.”
“Doing time in prison!” shrieked Martin Pollox. “No! no! Do not send me
to prison, I beg of you. I—I will make it all right! You shall have
all that is coming to you!”
He clutched Larry, and begged and pleaded, but our hero was obdurate.
“You have played the villain, Martin Pollox, and you must suffer the
consequences,” he said. “I hope you get the full limit of the law, for
you have not only committed crimes against my father and me, but you
were trying your best to cheat Mary Vern out of her inheritance.”
“I—I was crazy! I did not know what I was doing! Sluggers tempted
me!” went on the rascal, desperately.
“I tempted him!” roared Sluggers. “He tempted me—the sneak. If I had
my way I’d fix you!” And he raised his manacled hands threateningly.
The detectives would allow no more talking, and Pollox was marched to
his mansion.
Here a search was made, and not only the drawings, but a number of
important agreements were found, proving how Pollox had tried to cheat
Walter Barlow, and how he had had the man kidnapped and sent to Ponce,
and also how he had had old Caleb Backstay carried off.
“You’re in for a good term at Sing Sing,” said one of the detectives to
Pollox.
“I’ll turn State’s evidence,” put in Sluggers, eagerly.
“We won’t need you,” answered Larry, dryly. “We have got witnesses
enough. Lank Possy is under arrest.”
This was the last straw to break the camel’s back, and Check Sluggers
said no more.
An hour later found the evildoers behind the bars, and then Larry
started for home to tell his sister Kate of all the wonderful things
which had happened.
As he entered the kitchen he heard joyful talking in the parlor. Kate
was speaking.
“Won’t Larry be surprised,” she was saying. “He’ll think it too
wonderful for anything.”
Larry hurried into the parlor, and stopped near the doorway,
spellbound. There, in an easy chair, sat—yes, it was—his father!
“Father!” he fairly shouted, and at that word, Mr. Barlow leaped up.
“Is it really you?”
“Yes, Larry,” answered the parent, and embraced his son.
“How did you get here?” went on our hero. “I thought you were in Porto
Rico?”
“How did you learn he was in Porto Rico?” questioned Kate.
“It’s a long story. Pollox is under arrest, and so are Check Sluggers
and Captain Naxon.”
“Arrested!” cried both Kate and Walter Barlow.
“Yes, arrested, and from them I learned, father, that you were on a
plantation in Porto Rico, a place attached to an asylum.”
“I was there, but I watched my chances and escaped a month ago.”
“Of course, you were not insane?”
“No, Larry, but they tried to make me think so. It was an awful plot,
and if those rascals are under arrest it shall go hard with them,”
continued Mr. Barlow.
And then he told his story in detail, of how he had been robbed and
carried away, and how he had tried to get back or to send word home.
He had been on a plantation kept by a wicked Spaniard, but the Don was
dead, having been shot down by a Cuban he had flogged.
It was a joyful family party that gathered at the Barlow home that
night. Each one had to tell his story several times, and Kate had much
to tell, too. But the young housekeeper did not forget her duties, and
spread a feast for her father and brother which made their eyes glisten.
“You’re like your mother, Kate,” declared Mr. Barlow. “God bless you!”
A few words more, and I will bring my tale to a close.
In due course of time Martin Pollox and his companions in crime were
tried and found guilty of their various offenses. For what they had
done, Pollox was sent to prison for twelve years, and the others for
almost as long.
Lank Possy turned State’s evidence and was, consequently, not tried for
what he had done to aid Check Sluggers. But he overreached himself when
he thought the law would not touch him afterwards, for he was later
arrested for the Printing Works robbery, and for this was sentenced to
two years’ imprisonment.
During Martin Pollox’s trial it came out that he had become the
executor of Richard Vern’s will by fraud, and, consequently, his
executorship, so called, was set aside, and Mary had a new guardian
appointed, Fire Commissioner Kessenger, her father’s old friend.
The new guardian found Richard Vern’s memorandum book, and in this an
entry leaving our hero five hundred dollars for his bravery at the
hotel fire, so Larry received three hundred dollars in addition to what
Pollox had so grudgingly turned over to him.
Several years later Caleb Backstay was heard of at San Francisco, and
was assisted by both Mr. Barlow and Larry.
The patent elevator lift was found to be the sole property of Walter
Barlow, and this was afterward sold to an elevator company for twenty
thousand dollars. The elevator company also took hold of Larry’s patent
ladder, and inside of three years our hero received nearly fifteen
thousand dollars in royalties.
Mary Vern was glad enough to part company with Laura Pollox, who was
now practically a beggar, and who had to earn her living by going
out to sew among the very persons with whom she had once associated
socially. She made very little, and out of the goodness of her heart,
Mary helped her in many ways, but it is doubtful if Laura Pollox ever
appreciated this kindness.
Larry did not stop at one invention, but resigned his position as a
fireman and devoted all of his time to his patents, and inside of five
years was comfortably fixed for life. In the meantime Mary Vern and
he remained the warmest of friends, and nobody was surprised when the
invitations for their marriage came out.
“I thought so all along,” said Kate. “Well, Larry couldn’t do better,
and Mary couldn’t do better, either.”
It was a happy affair all around, and one long to be remembered, and
here we will leave them, wishing them the best of good luck.
Transcriber’s Notes.
1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical
errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
3. Some of the illustrations have been moved to be closer to their
descriptions.
4. Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and
bold text by =equal signs=.
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