Bill's team, badly blown, is hitched to the hook-and-ladder truck, and willing hands push it out through the door. There is always more or less of a feud between the hook-and-ladder boys and the hose-cart boys, because the former get the second team and rarely arrive at the fire in time to hoist the beautiful blue ladders before the hose-cart gang puts the conflagration out. Indeed, the feeling has gotten so strong at times that the hook-and-ladder gang has threatened to double the prize-money by private subscription and get their rig out first, but patriotism has thus far prevented this. You have rung the bell until you are tired, by this time, and, besides, the human flood has rushed on, leaving no one to whom you can explain just how you thought you smelled fire and beat the world to the engine-house. So you set out for the fire yourself and jog over the half-mile in pretty fair time, considering the heat. It is an impressive sight--not the fire itself, but the event. Two thousand, two hundred and nine people are there--that being the population of Homeburg minus the sick and wandering. In the midst of the seething mass are the hose-cart and the ladder-truck. Around them dozens of red helmets are bobbing, while the quivering air is cut and slashed and mangled with a very hurricane of orders: "Bring up that hose--" "Whoa, keep that horse still--" "Bring her round this way--" "Bring her round _this_ way--" "Hey, you chumps, the fire's _this_ side--" "Back up that wagon--" "Come ahead with the wagon--" "Get out of here till we get a ladder up--" "Axes here--" "Turn on that water--" "Turn on that water--" "_Turn on that water!!--_" "Jones, go down and tell that wooden Indian to turn on that water." "Hold that water, you--" "_Hold that water!_" "Turn her on, I say." "Turn her--" "Wow--turn that nozzle the other way--" And then the water comes with a mighty rush, yanking the nozzlemen this way and that and sweeping firemen and common citizens aside as if they were mere straws. As a rule, this is the climax, and the end comes rapidly. By this time Brown, who had put the fire out with a few pails of water before the alarm sounded, has persuaded the department to call off its hose, the barn being full of valuable hay. So there isn't anything to do. The water is turned off. Gibb Ogle explains to the one hundred and eleventh knot of people how he was going past the place when he saw the tongue of flame, and every one disperses after a pleasant social time.