Larry Barlow's ambition

“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.