Ten minutes later, Laura, who had exhausted her ingenuity in devising excuses for delaying their return, heard with delight Bruce’s familiar voice behind them, and stopped to wait for him. As he approached she saw that his face, which had been so bright and smiling all the afternoon, was sober and pale now, and the thought flashed across her mind that perhaps he had encountered the ghost of one of his relatives in the old house, some long-veiled woman flitting up and down the old staircase as spirits always did in the romances with which she was familiar. “Well?” she said, as Bruce joined her. “I was just too late,” said the boy with something like a sob in his voice, “Mr. Dexter sailed for Europe yesterday, and there’s nobody there but an old couple who are taking care of the house. They don’t know when he will be back or anything about it. There goes my last and only chance.” CHAPTER XV. One afternoon Bruce Decker was seated in front of the quarters reading a newspaper, and waiting for the men to return from a fire to which they had been summoned half an hour before. So engrossed was he that he did not hear the footsteps of three gentlemen who were crossing the street directly in front of him, and he was startled to hear his name suddenly pronounced in a quick, imperious way. Leaping to his feet he found himself face to face with his kind old friend, Mr. Dewsnap, known to all the members of the company as the “fire crank.” Mr. Dewsnap’s companions were two gentlemen, both of them well dressed and of prepossessing appearance, and both unquestionably foreigners. One was a tall man, attired in a suit of very large checks, and the other was short, rotund and long haired. The former was evidently an Englishman, and the latter a German. “Where’s the chief?” inquired Mr. Dewsnap. “Out with the company,” replied the boy, taking off his cap, for Bruce had sense enough to know that politeness to his elders was always a strong point in favor of any boy. “That’s too bad,” replied Mr. Dewsnap, taking out his watch, “because I have brought down these two gentlemen to show them the way we have in this country of putting out fires, and I wanted to have them make Chief Trask’s acquaintance. However,” he continued, “I’ll just take them inside here and explain what I can myself; then when the chief comes back he can show them the rest.”