Yes, that had been done already, and in a few minutes the vehicle, with its uniformed driver and surgeon and its sharp clanging bell, was making its way through the crowd, which by this time had reached enormous proportions. It drew up near the curbstone, the surgeon leaped to the ground and knelt down beside the unconscious boy. Mr. Dewsnap was sitting in the gutter beside him, regardless of his fine clothes, and briskly rubbing his hands in the hope of restoring the circulation. Chief Trask, who had lingered a moment to assure himself that the lad was still alive, had returned to his duties, but the reporters had gathered about and, in a quick, business-like way, were questioning Mr. Dewsnap and the surgeon. “Does anybody know the boy’s name or how he happened to get hurt?” asked a pleasant faced young chap, who had a note-book and pencil in his hand. “Bruce Decker is his name,” replied the old gentleman, “and he’s not regularly in the department but helps the chief down at headquarters. Why, his father was killed in that Broadway apartment house fire some time ago.” “I remember all about it,” rejoined the young man, and then turning to his companions, he said: “Don’t you remember that Frank Decker, the fireman who was lost when that apartment house burned down? I covered that fire and I remember all about it.” “Just give me a hand, will you, I think I’ll take this young man right up to the hospital,” said the surgeon, who had been making a superficial examination of Bruce’s injuries. “I took a young kid up there from this very fire half an hour ago.” Then, with Mr. Dewsnap’s assistance, he deposited Bruce on the spring mattress inside the ambulance, resumed his seat behind him and told the driver to go on. Mr. Dewsnap stood watching the departing vehicle with an anxious, troubled face and then, turning to the reporter with whom he had spoken before, he said: “That young lad whom they have just carried off is the worthy son of a good father, and if it hadn’t been for him, that other boy that the surgeon spoke of wouldn’t have been saved. He found him lying on the floor up there, and I myself saw him carry him down the ladder and then go right back to his work again. That’s a pretty good record for a boy to make at his first fire, isn’t it.” The reporters listened attentively to what Mr. Dewsnap said, and made frequent entries in their note-books. Most of them knew the old gentleman as a fire-crank, frequently encountered at fires, and one who was always ready to furnish them with any information they required. It was he to whom they usually went if any one was hurt, for he knew the names and histories of all the important men in the department as well as those of the subordinate firemen employed in Chief Trask’s battalion, in which he claimed a sort of honorary membership. CHAPTER XIX.