The reflection of the blaze was now so bright that objects in the street could be plainly seen, and faces easily distinguished at a considerable distance. "There's Cole Bishop!" said Bert to his chum, pointing to another lad, who was running along, evidently much out of breath, as he was quite fat. "Hello, Cole!" called Bert. "Hello--Bert! Goin'--to--the--fire?" came from Cole, with a puff between each word. "Naw, we're goin' to a Sunday school picnic," replied Vincent, who was something of a joker. "Humph! Funny--ain't--you!" remarked Cole. The boys continued to speed on toward the burning barn, which was one of the buildings belonging to Anderson Stimson, a farmer, and located just on the edge of the village. The crowd had increased, and several score of people were on their way to the conflagration. "They'll--have--a--hot--time--putting--out--that--fire," spoke Cole, with labored breath. "They--only--got--buckets." "That's all they've had in Lakeville since the time it was founded by Christopher Columbus," remarked Vincent. "It's a good thing we don't have many fires." "If I had my force pump I could show--show--'em--how--to--squirt--water," said Cole, who had begun the first part of the sentence very fast, but who had to slow down on the last section. He was almost completely out of breath. "Why didn't you bring it along?" asked Bert. "Huh! How--could--I--when--it's--fast--on--the--cistern?" That argument was, of course, unanswerable. Cole Bishop was a lad quite fond of mechanics, and was usually engaged in making some new kind of machinery. His force pump was his latest effort, and he was quite proud of it. "Say! I should think it was burning!" suddenly exclaimed Bert, as he and his chums turned a corner of the street and came in full view of the blazing barn. The structure seemed enveloped in flames, great tongues of fire leaping high in the air, and a black pall of smoke hovering like an immense cloud above it. "They can't save that!" "Guess not!" added Vincent. "What good are buckets in a blaze like that? You can't get near enough to throw the water on." "Wish--I--had--my--force--pump," panted Cole. By this time the boys had joined the crowd that was already at the scene of the fire. The heat could be felt some distance away. "Come on, everybody with buckets!" cried Constable Stickler, who sometimes assumed charge of the bucket brigade. "Form a line from the horse trough to the barn. Pass the full buckets up one side and the empty ones down the other. Let the boys pass the empty buckets an' the men the full ones." "Let's form two lines for full buckets," proposed another man. "We'll need three," put in a third individual. "Who's runnin' this here fire, I'd like to know?" inquired the constable indignantly. "Git to work now." "Yes, I guess they'd better, or there won't be any barn to save," spoke Bert.