yard of the house adjoining the butcher shop, to where the brook
flowed back of the store. But it was accomplished by the boys unaided,
for the men were busy trying to find some means of using their
buckets.

"Dip and fill!" cried Bert, as the corps of pail handlers lined up
from the engine to the brook.

Water began to splash into the tank and soon there was enough to begin
pumping. Up and down went the long handles, impelled by the sturdy
arms of ten boys.

"Wait!" cried Cole. "You're not using my force pump. Somebody take the
hose. I'll work her!"

"I will!" cried Dick Harris, glad of the chance to handle a nozzle,
even if it was only a small one, and unreeling the garden hose Cole
had attached to his beloved pump, he started toward the burning
butcher shop.

The young firemen soon found they had all they could do in quenching
this fire. It was the fiercest one they had yet undertaken to subdue.

It was so hot that the boys at the nozzles had to be relieved every
few minutes, and Bert was kept busy making shifts from the bucket
corps or from among the pumpers.

The men's bucket brigade could only throw water on from the rear,
where the fire was less hot, but the boys pluckily stuck to the front,
and directed their three streams into the midst of the flames. Clouds