Jack Ranger's Gun Club: or, From Schoolroom to Camp and Trail

The students reached their rooms without being detected, whispering to Jack, on their way, their thanks for the spread.

“I’ve had the best time in my life!” exclaimed Will as he clasped Jack’s hand at his door. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Then don’t try,” replied Jack. “Brace up, and you’ll be all right.”

“I will.”

Whether it was the effect of the pie or doughnuts Jack never knew, but some time during the night he began to dream that he had swallowed a big piece of pastry the wrong way, and it was choking him. He sat up, gasping for breath, and found to his horror that his room was full of smoke.

“There’s a fire!” he spoke aloud. Then he called to Nat, who was in the bed across from him:

“Nat! Nat! Wake up! There’s a fire!”

“No, I can’t get up any higher,” sleepily responded Nat, turning over in bed, and evidently thinking that his chum had asked him to climb up a tree.

“It’s a fire!” cried Jack, springing from bed. “There’s a fire, Nat!”

This roused the sleeping lad, who also bounded out from under the covers. There was no doubt about it. Their room was filled with smoke, which was getting thicker every minute.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” yelled Jack, for he heard no one stirring about in the school dormitory, and he rightly guessed that he was the first to sound the alarm.

His call was sufficient to arouse students on either side of him, and then Martin and several of the teachers came running from their apartments.

“Where is the fire, Ranger?” asked Mr. Gales, one of the mathematical instructors.

“I don’t know, but my room is full of smoke.”

Just then, from somewhere below stairs, sounded a cry:

“Fire! Fire! There’s a fire in the boiler-room! Help!”

“That’s Socker, the janitor,” declared Jack. “Come on, fellows, we’ll help him.”

He rushed for the stairs, attired in his pajamas and slippers, and was followed by Nat and a score of other students.

“Boys, boys! Be careful!” called Mr. Gales.

Meanwhile, the smoke was getting thicker, and every one was beginning to cough.

“Fire! Fire!” yelled Socker.

Jack, leading the rush of pupils through the smoke, soon reached the boiler-room in the basement. Through the clouds of vapor, illuminated by gasjets here and there left burning all night in case of accident, he could see the flicker of flames.

“Come on!” he called. “There are some pails with water along the wall, and a couple of hand extinguishers!”

They reached the engine-room, to find a blaze in one corner, where Socker kept some waste, cans of oil, old rags and brooms. The fire had been eating toward the storeroom, where the midnight feast had been held.

“Forward the fire brigade!” yelled Jack as he grabbed up an extinguisher and began to play it on the flames, while some of his chums caught up pails of water, kept filled for just such an emergency.

The flames were beginning to crackle now, and the fire seemed likely to be a bad one.

Suddenly Socker, who was running about doing nothing, looked at the boiler and cried out:

“Run! Everybody run! The safety valve has caught, and the boiler will blow up! Run! Run!”

The boys needed no second warning. Jack paused for a moment, for the stream from his extinguisher was beginning to quench the flames, but as he saw Socker fleeing from the room, and as he reflected that it would be dangerous to remain, he turned and fled, carrying the apparatus with him.

“Everybody out!” cried Socker. “Get ’em all out! The boiler will blow up!”

The lads, lightly clad, fled through the basement door out into the night. The snow, which had ceased that evening, had started in again, and the storm was howling as if in glee at the plight of the students of Washington Hall, who were driven from their beds by fire.

CHAPTER X

SAVING THE FLAGS

“Telephone for the town fire department!” cried Dr. Mead, who had been apprised of the fire. He, like all the others, was out in the storm, with a few clothes he had hastily donned.

“They can’t get in the boiler-room to fight the fire!” cried Socker.

“Why not?”

“Because the boiler will blow up. Something is wrong with the safety valve, and there are two hundred pounds of steam on. The boiler is only meant for one hundred.”

“How did the fire start? What made the safety valve get out of order?” asked the principal.

The group of students and teachers, standing in the storm, could now see the bright flicker of flames in the boiler-room. “I don’t know,” replied Socker. “I was asleep in front of the boiler, waiting to put some more coal on, when all of a sudden I smelled smoke.”

“How long before the boiler will go up?” asked Dr. Mead anxiously. “I have some valuable books I must save.”

He started to re-enter the school.

“Don’t go back!” cried Socker. “It’s liable to go up any minute!”

Dr. Mead returned to the waiting group, his face betraying intense excitement.

“We must get the fire out!” he cried. “Can’t some one send word to the village?”

“There’s a telephone in Mr. Raspen’s house, about half a mile away,” volunteered Sam. “I’ll run there.”

He started off, and just as he did so a series of alarming cries broke out at one of the upper corridor windows of the school.

“Fire! Fire!” cried a voice. “Der school ist being gonsumed by der fierce elements! Safe me, somebodies! I must get out my German flag! I must out get quvick, alretty yet!”

The anxious face of Professor Garlach appeared at one of the windows.

“Don’t jump!” cried Jack, as the teacher seemed about to do so. “You’ve got time enough to come down the stairs.”

“B-r-r-r-r! It’s cold!” cried Nat Anderson, as some snow got inside the slippers he had put on, and some flakes sifted down his back.