A PURTY GOOD PIECE OF LADDER WORK.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10148, 22 September 1898, Page 2

A PURTY GOOD PIECE OF LADDER WORK.

Frojl " Ax Advkstcr* of Truck Sα," vt Ba* m STAXXaU BaK«R IN III! Witt WOBLB MAOAMHS.

It was a few minutes past five o dock in the afternoon when the cook of the Wellington Hotel rushed up from the basement and pulled the knob of the red fire-alarm box back of the clerk's desk. In the laundry behind the kitchen the flames were spreading along the walls and reaching out of the windows and doors. Five minutes later they had found the wooden elevator shaft, where they leaped ™«» a roar to the top of the building and blazed out over the roof like a smoky red toich When the firemen came they had to faght their way through a crowd of bewildered guests that streamed from every doorway. The Wellington Hotel stood at the corner of Cass Avenue and Thirty-firststreet m I a comfortable residence dl ? tri f. o p e^, Y It was of brick, five stones high, and built in the form of a big L, with,»«, white-washed court m the angle at the rear. Adjoining it in Cass Avenue stood a thin 1 frame binldin- two stories high, occupied on™e fir t floor by a dealer in hats and g"oves, with a photograph gallery over- ! Collins saw at a glance that the Thirty-first Street L was doomed. Ihe fire looked from every window in its five stories. There was only one thing to do: save as much as possible of the front L, and prevent the tire from spreading to the other buildings of the block. In half a minute Collins had disposed his forces. Three streams of water drove in the windows of the upper floors near the corner of the hotel; three companies closed in at the rear along the alley-way, and Truck Six. Swenson, lieutenant, wheeled up close to the kerbing and ran a Bangor lauuer to the roof of the photograph gallery The ladder swayed and dipped like a poplar pole, ami then rested lightly against the cormce.Swenson and his men scrambled up with their lanterns and axes. Captain Hill, of Engine 14, and four of his company, followed with a lead of hose. From the top of the gallery Swenson raised another ladder until it tipped the fourth-story wmao-.v. From this point a short scaling-ladder was pushed up, and hooked to the stone ledge of the window on the fifth floor. Swenson drove in the sashes, frame and all, and a moment later they dragged the hose down the carpeted hall and into a room that opened on the court. From the window they could command the other L. Hill signalled for water, "and they dropped a fiftygallon stream into the thick of the fire. From the height at which they worked not a drop of water was lost. After establishing the lead, Swenson, with Kirk, his axeman, and two truckmen, Geiger and Ford, went down the hall to find a suitable place for the second hoseline which No. 4 was dragging up the ladders. At a turn of the passage-way they heard a voice shouting. "Someone's left in tL)e building, observed Swenson.

Geiger went ahead with his lighted lantern. Kirk and Ford shoutted again and again, but there was no reply. The smoke was tfasfc {becoming unendurable, even <o a seasoned fireman, and they turned and ran back, opening the doors and peering into the smoky interiors of the rooms as they passed. Presently Swenson stumbled, and all but fell over something in the hallway. Geiger held his lantern. A man on his hands and knees, with a handkerchief over his mouth, was crawling on the floor. ...

"Where's the stairway?" he mumbled. Swenson lifted him up and guided him down the hall. On nearing the window a 1 which they had entered they were, startled to see the hose-line crawling rapidly down the hall floor and wriggling out) of the window long snake The brass nozzle head rang sharply on the stone ledge, and was gone. Tho room where the pipemen had been at work was vacant, and upon looking out of the hall window Swenson saw the flames bursting up from the photograph gallery, the flimsy - roof of which curled before them as if it were made of pasteboard. The ladder reaching to » the fourth floor was already down. -In? the street below, Swenson saw Hill and his men just running to safety across the street. Collins, the marshal, was shouting through nis curved palms, but the roar of the fire and the hiss of tlie water drowned his voice. They had stayed a moment too long. There was no escape from that side* of the building. At Swenson's order, Kirk and Ford drew up the scaling-ladder that hung from the window, and they all groped their way tiirough the smoke, which was now driving down the hallway in dense, choking currents. Swenson opened a door leading into one of the rooms which faced the Cass Avenue front of the building. Here he threw up the window and looked out. The street pavement was mapped with the crisscross of hose-lines. At the corner, No. 8V engine was squealing frantically for coal. A dense knot of firemen were running a hose-nozzle on the side-walk opposite. The crowds had been choked back until they stoop wedged deep and dark around the •farther corner.

Swenson saw Collins wave his hand tc the men of Truck 2 and point upward. He saw them start with their ladders, and then, of a sudden, the whole building shook, and a dense cloud of smoke belched from the basement below and filled the street. And Swanson knew tharfi the building directly under him was on fire. In four 01 five minutes at the very most the floors would go down. To anyone but a fireman, there would have been no way of escape. But Swenson stood two inches over six feet in his stockings, and he was cool with the experience of fifteen years of fires. His plan was formed instantly. Kirk drove ou* the window sashes with a single blow of his axe. Swenson seized the ladder and ran it outside, hooks up. Then he stood on the stone ledge; Geiger and Ford seized his belt, one on each side; and he leaned far out, as if to jump. Carefully the ladder was'lifted toward the edge of the roof, the iron cornice of which extended some distance over the street. Foi a mioment he swayed and strained. The hooks rasped on the wall, but they would not reach to the top. The ladder, was toe heavy; in that cramped position Swenson could not. raise it to its full height. When he tried to push it up another round it began to oscillate, and it was. with difficulty that he saved it from pitching into the street.- ■''"■

"No iise," said Ford, despondently.

At this Harrison, the hotel guest whom they had saved, grew, half beside himself with terror, and began to berateJthem, one after another. ; , ""

Swenson paid niot the slightest attention jo hint. After a moment's consultation with the other men, he formed another plan. Placing the foot of the ladder firmly on the outside window-ledge, he lifted its top in air. Then he and Geiger each took firm hold of it with one hand, gripping the other, around the inside casing of the window. Kirk, who was the lightest of the number stepped up on. the window-sill. He had kicked off his boots and thrown aside his helmet. He was white to the lips. . "Don't look down>" said Swenson. Bark climbed up the ladder until he was poised in mid-air, 60ft sheer above the stone sidewalk. At the end of the ladder he paused and looked around. "Do on," shouted Swenson.

Kirk went up another step and released his arms, standing on the second round from the top. Slowly Swenson and Geiger drew the ladder closer to the wall. Kirk swayed and swung like a pole-balancer. Then he reached for the top of the building. It was still above him. He stepped from the. second round to the bare top : of the ladder and balanced dizzily, with one hand resting lightly on the walL In that moment he heard the roaring of the fire and the squelching of the water through the windows below him, but he saw only the grey scaled edge of. the cornice. , He knew that if he did not go up, he would go down 60ft to the flagging below. Slowly he raised up. His fingers slipped just over the edge of the cornice and tightened there. He drew himself up, and rolled over on the gravel roof. By this time every glimpse of the street *clow had been blotted out by the smoke, pfcut the room in which Swenson worked was .still comparatively free from it, the door "being closed.

"Now Ford," said Swenson. Ford had not looked when Kirk climbed.

Such things are not good to see.. He ran] up the ladder rapidly. It was again drawn in, and when Ford reached the top, Kiric, reaching over, seized his wrists and helped him up. As he disappeared from view Harrison, the citiwm, rushed widly forward "You're going to leave mc!" he shouted; "you're going to let mc burn up J ' "No we're not," growled Swenson; it s your turn next." _~ ■ At that Harrison, who had thrown off His coat and shoes, sprang on to the wmdowsill. Then he looked down. The smoke from below was now seamed with streaks of fire. It was a long way down to the street. The ladder looked frail and unsteady. He sprang back, and darted half vray across the room. "I can't do it," he said. "Steady the ladder," Swenson said to Then he seized Harrison by the collar and shook him as if he had been a poodle dog. After that he cuffed him soundly, first on one side of the head and then on the other. "Get up there, or I'll pitch you into the street," he said. Harrison climbed. At the top of the ladder he looked up. Kirk and Ford were reaching down to him. He went one round higher. "Straighten up—steady now," said Kirk, calmly. Harrison raised himself slowly and lifted his hands. Just as he felt Kirk's, fingers he gave way and swayed against the wall. Kirk gripped'him hard. For a moment he dangled helplessly. Then both men reached his arm and pulled him up. "Now Geiger," said Swenson. "You can't hold the ladder," said Geiger.

"I can," answered the big Swede. still a moment. They heard the ominous crunching of the fire under them, and they knew that it would soon knock at the door. Geiger climbed. Swenson strained hard with both feet braced under the window-sill. He had promised to shout wheti he could no longer hold the ladder. When Geiger was* half way \vp he shouted. Then he felt the ladder lighten suddenly and he saw Geiger's body swing off into the air. For a- moment he went sick at the sight; then he saw Kirk and Ford pulling him up on their belts. All this had taken place in less than three minutes. The whole building was burning now, and the air was full of cinders. Swenson could not see the street pavement, but lie caught glimpses of the ■white rods of water driving into the windows below him. Occasionally on© of them curved upward, opened at the end like a great fan, and fell back in spray. Swenson stood on the stone ledge with one hand gripped inside of the win/dow-casing. Then he lifted the ladder and turew it up round by round with, his right hand, pausing between each hitch to be sure of tfae balance. So much for the. fire-drill. When it was nearly up he strained hard, and Kirk and Ford, who had buckled their belts together, dropped the loop around the hooks at the end, drew it up, and fitted it firmly over the cornice edge. Swenson swung.out on the lower end of it, scrambled to tihe top, hand over hand, and rolled out on the roof.

They were just in time to see another section of the roof go down with a terrific crash that sent the flames and cinders leaping a hundred feet in the air. The whole building quivered, and for a moment they thought the wallj were going down. There was fire on every side of them and under them, and the smoke cut off the sky from above. Their faces were already scorched with the heat.

Directly across the street from the Wellington Hotel, and about 60ft away, there stood a four-storey apartment building. A telephone wire cable a little more than an inch in diameter extended from the roof of one to the roof of the other. On the top of the hotel it was fastened to a stout post, and it pitched off over the edge of the roof at a sharp angle downward to the other building.- Kirk, being the lightest, was selected to go first. Swenson and the other three men, fearing that the cable had been injured beyond the post, laid firm hold of it and braced their feet. Kirk sat on the edge of the cornice, with bis feet hanging over. Then he slid off, crossed his legs over the wire as over a life-linej and slipped downy The cable sagged' until it seemed about to snap. Hand ovei hand Kirk slid over the chasm,, teetering and swaying from side to side, until the men on the roof turned their heads away. W!b.en Kirk was over, Ford followed him without ar word, and Geiger followed Ford. Each time the cable sa.gged deeper an)d the post bent farther down. Swenson buckled four belts together and brought them around Harrison's body ovfir the cable. ~ ■ -.

"Keep hold," (he said, "and you can't fall."

, But Harrison was now dazed and only half conscious. When he begam to slide he grasped feebly at the cable, and then it slipped between his fingers. His body shot down heavily and stopped with a jerk that all but snapped the cable. -For a moment he dangled at the end of the belt straps, then he whizzed across the street and drove headlong into the post on the farther side.

By this time Kirk and Ford Hwd lost all traces of Swenson. Smoke and flames enveloped the entire building, and from the shouts in the street below, they'knew that the wall would soon go down. ' Suddenly Swensoni shot out of the smoke, spun a moment on the cable, and fell at their feet. His hands and ankles were terribly lacerated and burned where they had slipped on the cable. But all four of the firemen managed to hobble down-stairs without assistance. On the first floor they passed through a company of hotel guests talking :to reporters about their narrow escapes—three women had fainted, and one man had fallen downstairs. Harrison, who was unconscious, with a battered head and a broken arm, was sent to the hospital. The hotel and the frame photograph gallery next to it were totally destroyed. "One hundred thousand dollars fire damage," said a head-line in one of the papers next morning; "but no lives lost."

The papers contained columns of description ; but the adventure of Lieutenant Swensod and his men received only a few paragraphs. When I asked Swenson about it, his story amounted in substance to this: —

"The marshal told mc to go up, an' I went up. She got too hot, an' I came down."

It was not overweening modesty on Swen-' son's part;it was simply thS inability to seei that he had done anything unusual. Hβ had learned ladder and life : line work in the drill-room, and when occasion demanded he had made practical use of his knowledge.

"It was a purty good piece of ladderwoi'k," he commented, apologetically; "but we had to do it."