“You’re wanted, Bruce!” cried a grimy fireman, as he rushed up to where the boy was standing. The boy’s eyes flashed, and then he said reluctantly; “But Captain Murphy told me to watch the horses.” “You go along!” exclaimed Mr. Dewsnap, peremptorily, “I’ll stay by the tender until you come back,” and the boy darted off without waiting to thank him. Captain Murphy’s company was short-handed and Bruce was wanted to take a length of the hose. The captain was just entering the building by means of a ladder which reached to the third floor, and Bruce, taking his place on the hose, followed upwards the last of the line of men. The window at which the captain was making his entrance had received but five minutes before the thick stream of water directed by two fire-engines through the siamese joint and when they stepped over the charred and smoking window-sill they found the room black with smoke, and fully six inches of water on the floor. It was a hard pull to get the heavy hose up the ladder but Bruce did his best with the men and followed them as they climbed through the window. As the water surged about his feet he looked at the darkness before him and admitted to himself that he would not have dared to enter that building unless the others had gone before him. But no thought of turning back entered the boy’s mind. Not for any reward on earth would he have dropped his hose and sneaked back down the ladder. The smoke closed around him and made his eyes smart so that he could not keep them open; but still he kept on, unable to see the man who was twenty-five feet in front of him, but knowing by the drag on the hose that he was there. Where the captain was leading him or for what purpose he did not know. He was simply a soldier obeying orders. And the feeling that he was at last doing something as a fireman came upon him with a keen sense of exhilaration.