They were all there, the doctor, the blacksmith, the postmaster, the
men from the mills, and the banks, and the stores. Economy heard the
bells for Marilyn had hurried to the church and added the fire chime to
the call and came over with their little chemical engine. Monopoly
heard and hurried their brand new hook and ladder up the valley road,
but the fire had been eating long in the heart of the plush mill and
laughed at their puny streams of water forced up from the creek below,
laughed at the chemicals flung in its face like drops of rain on a
sizzling red hot stove. It licked its lips over the edge of the cliff
on which it was built, and cracked its jaws as it devoured the mill,
window by window, section by section, leaping across with an angry red
tongue to the first tall building by its side.

The fire had worked cunningly, for it had crept out of sight to the
lower floors all along the row, and unseen, unknown, had bitten a hold
on each of those doomed buildings till when the men arrived it went
roaring ghoulishly up the high narrow stairs cutting off all escape
from above, and making entrance below impossible. Up at the windows the
doomed people stood, crying, praying, wringing their hands, and some
losing their heads and trying to jump out.

The firemen were brave, and worked wonders. They flung up ladders in
the face of the flames. They risked their lives every step they took,
and brought out one after another, working steadily, grimly, rapidly.
And none were braver among them all than Mark Carter and the minister,
each working on the very top of a tall treacherous ladder, in the face
of constant danger, bringing out one after another until the last.