Just then a thickset man with a red handkerchief tied round his head came forward to the stall and demanded a glass of beer. The moment his eyes encountered those of Boone he became pale as death and staggered back as if he had received a deadly blow. "Is that you, Gorman?" cried David, in a voice and with an expression of amazement. Gorman did not reply, but gazed at his former friend with a look of intense horror, while his chest heaved and he breathed laboriously. Suddenly he uttered a loud cry and rushed towards the river. Part of the crowd sprang after him, as if with a view to arrest him, or to see what he meant to do. In the rush Barret and Boone were carried away. A few moments later a deep murmur of surprise rose from the thousands of spectators on the bridge, for a boat was seen to dash suddenly from the shore and sweep out on the river. It was propelled by a single rower--a man with a red kerchief tied round his head. The murmur of the crowd suddenly increased to a shout of alarm, for the man was rowing, his boat straight towards a mass of tallow which floated and burned on the water. "Hold on!" "Lookout ahead!" shouted several voices, while others screamed "Too late!" "He's gone!" and then there arose a wild cry, for the man rowed straight into the centre of the burning mass and was enveloped in the flames. For one moment he was seen to rise and swing his arms in the air--then he fell backwards over the gunwale of his boat and disappeared in the blazing flood. Fiercer and fiercer raged the fire. The night passed--the day came and went, and night again set in--yet still the flames leaped and roared in resistless fury, and still the firemen fought them valiantly. And thus they fought, day and night, hand to hand, for more than a fortnight, before the battle was thoroughly ended and the victory gained. How the firemen continued to do their desperate work, day and night, almost without rest, it is impossible to tell. Frank Willders said that, after the first night, he went about his work like a man in a dream. He scarcely knew when, or how, or where he rested or ate. He had an indistinct remembrance of one or two brief intervals of oblivion when he supposed he must have been asleep, but the only memory that remained strong and clear within him was that of constant, determined fighting with the flames. And Willie Willders followed him like his shadow! clad in a coat and helmet borrowed from a friend in the Salvage Corps. Willie fought in that great fight as if he had been a trained fireman. On the fourth day, towards evening, Frank was ordered down into a cellar where some tar-barrels were burning. He seized the branch, and was about to leap down the stair when Dale stopped him. "Fasten the rope to your belt," he said.