Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1901-08-01

4 dLlu Il VI ~ -StN CulL olANNl. IL W d. Oti
| fire, and far gone with fire (the thing
seems Incredibly, before ever the
engines were called; and that every
| body supposed that of course some
! body had sent the alarm. And so they
all watched the fire, and waited for the
| engines, ten minutes, fifteen minutes,
and by that time great column of
| flame was roaring up the elevator
| shaft, and people on the roof, in their
madness, were jumping down to the
| street. Then some sane citizen went
to a tire-box and rang the call, and
! within ninety seconds engine 65 was
on the ground. And after her came
| engines "a and 81, and then the hook
and-ladder companies. But there was
no making up that lost fifteen minutes.
! The fire had things in its teeth now.
and three. four. five alarms went out
in quick succession. Twenty-three
! engines had their streams on that fire
in almost as many minutes. And the
| big fire-tower came from Thirty-siXth
| street and ninth avenue. and six hook
| and-ladder companies arrived.
Let us see how hook and ladder 81
came. She was the mate of the fire
tower, and the rush of her galloping
horses was echoing up the avenue
! just at Battalion Chief John Binns
made out a woman in a seventh-stOry
window on the Forty-siXth street side,
where the fire was raging fiercely.
/ Tho hn1Jinor - 1ittln
| in her arms, and it looked as if she
was going to jump. The chief waved
| to her to stay where she was, and,
running toward the truck, motioned it
| into FOrty-siXth street. WhereupOI
the tiller-man at his back wheel did a
pretty piece of steering, and even as
they plunged along, the crew began
hosting the big ladder. Such a thing
Is never done. for the truck might up
set with the swaying; but every
second counted here, and they took
| the chance.
AS they drew along the curb, Fire
man McDermOtt sprang up the slowly
! raising ladder, and two men came
| behind with scaling-Iadders, for they
saw that the main ladder would never
reach the woman. Five stories Is
what it did reach, and then Nc
Dermott, standing on the top round,
smashed one of the scaling-ladders
through a siXth-story window, and
climbed on, smashing the second
scaling-ladder through seventh-story
window, and five seconds later had
| the woman in his arms.
To carry woman down the front of
a burning building on scaling ladders
| is a matter of regular routine for a
| fieman, like jumping from a fourth
story down to net, or making
bridge of his body. 1t is part of the
business. But to have one foot in the
air reaching for a lower step on
sWaying flimsy thing, and to feel the
other step break under you, and TO
fall two feet and catch safely, that is
a thing not every fireman could do;
but McDermott did it, and he brought
the woman safely to the ground-and
the dog too.
Almost at the same moment, the
crowd on Fourty-seventh street were
gasping in admiration of a rescue feat
even more thrilling. On the roof,
screaming in terror, was Kate Flanni-
gan, a servant, swaying over the cor
nice, on the point of throwing herself
down. Then out of a tOp-foor window
crept a little fireman, and stood on the
tire-escape, gasping for air Then he
reached in and dragged out an I'M
conscious woman and lowered her to
others, and was just starting down
himself, when yells from the street
made him look up, and he saw Kate
Flanagan. She was ten feet above
HIM, and he had no means of reaching
her.
The crowd watched anxiously, and
saw the little fireman lean back over
the fire-esCape and motion and shout
something to the woman. And then
she crept over the cornice edge, hung
by her hands for a second, and
dropped into the fireman's arms, 1t
isn't every big, strong man who
could catch stable woman in fall
like that and hold her, but this strip
ling did it, because he had the nerve
and knew how. And that made
another life saved.
BY this time flames were breaking
out of every story from street to roof.
1t seemed impossible to so on with
the rescue wrok; yet the men per-
sisted, even on the Fifth avenue front,
bare of fire-escapes. They used the
long extension ladders as far as they
could, and then scaled it" from win
dow to window. Here it was that
William Clark of hook and ladder
made the rescues that gave him the
Bennett medal-took three women out
of seventh-story windows when it was
like climbing over furnace mouths to
get there.
And one of these women he reached
only by working his way along narrow
stone lodges for three windows, and
back the same way to his ladder with
the woman on his shoulder. Even so
it is likely he would have failed in this