The broadside of streams from the _Hudson_ had checked the progress of the fire down the water front, and a single standpipe was sufficient to hold it now; but the roof of the brewery was flaming under a rolling plume of black smoke, and the excitement ashore rose to the confusion of a panic. Keighley, on the bulwarks, gathered together a herd of volunteers, and drove them with shouts to drag lines from the hose-box and stretch them up the pier. They tripped over their own feet, blundered with their hose-spanners, tried to screw the wrong nozzles on the lines, turned on the water before their couplings were tight, got in the way of the trained men, and were bruised and wetted, blinded, cursed and bewildered, like a crew of clumsy stage supers caught in the hurry of a “dark change.” When they got their big line laid and the water turned into it, the force of the stream kicked them back as if they had been trying to hold a cannon; and it was only by virtue of the everlasting luck of the beginner that the plunging nozzle did not thresh the lives out of some of them. Keighley swore disgustedly, and sat down on the side of the boat. The brewery was doomed in any case. He watched it burn. While he was sitting there, the crestfallen Noonan came up behind him, perspiring remorsefully, and wiping his red face in the crook of his elbow. “We got th’ ol’ Dutchman into trouble, Dan,” he said. Keighley snorted his indifference. “The boys all work in the brew’ry. He says they’ll blame him fer bein’ out o’ jobs.” Keighley spat. “It’s up to him. It ain’t up to me.” “His depaty’s been in there, crowin’ over ’m. He’ll be gettin’ elected to Dolger’s place.... He didn’t try to save the brew’ry. He says Dolger let the soap works burn a-purpose.... The whole dang thing’s been botched.” “Sure it’s been botched,” Keighley said. “What’d yuh expect? They’re too busy playin’ politics to put out fires.” Noonan’s mouth shut. He stroked his chin thoughtfully with a thumb and forefinger, looking down his nose. Then he went back to the wheelhouse and lit a cigar. He did not come out again until the boat turned homeward, with the sun setting smoke-red over the hills of Nohunk. The wreck of Dolger’s career stretched from the ruins of the soap works to the blackened shell of the brewery. He had been helped to his home by a squad of loyal officers; his deputy was wearing his white fire-hat; and, in the road that had marked his line of battle, the indignant citizens of Nohunk were planning a revolution in his fire-department. Noonan watched them sadly from the taffrail. Dolger’s woes lay heavy on him. Behind him Keighley said: “Between the boys o’ the soap-works fightin’ the boys o’ the brew’ry, an’ Chief Dolger scrappin’ with Depaty Hencks, there ain’t much left o’ Nohunk.” Noonan did not reply.