The Automobile Girls Along the Hudson: or, Fighting Fire in Sleepy Hollow

Standing in the doorway was a very old man. He carried a candle in one hand, and was peering at her in the darkness with that same expression of wonder and surprise on his face that she had remembered to have seen before, for this was their third encounter, once in the woods, once in the library, and now.

“Barbara! Barbara Thurston!” he called in a quavering voice. “I have been waiting for you so long, so many years. I am old now and you are still young.” He stretched out his arms and came toward her.

Bab flew and almost ran into José, who opened his door at that moment. When they recovered themselves the old man was gone.

“Which way did he go?” asked José.

Bab pointed to the door without speaking, and, still trembling from fright, burst into her own room, where a strange scene was taking place. Three high-backed chairs were arranged in a row. Ruth in a dressing gown was crouching behind them, while Mollie and Grace sat hand in hand on the bed, giving little gasps of excitement and horror.

“This is the clump of bushes,” Ruth was saying, “and the three fights took place here and here, and here,” she went on, marking the spots with her toe. “Stephen and his man, who was none other than the giant tramp, fought straight out from the shoulder like this,” and she hit the air furiously with her doubled fists. “Then came Alfred and his friend. They didn’t hit. They gripped and rolled over and over in the dust. And last of all, poor Jimmie, who, in five minutes, lay like a warrior taking his rest.”

“Why, Ruth Stuart,” interrupted Bab, “I thought we were not to tell.”

“Sh-h! Don’t make so much noise, Bab. Aunt Sallie thinks we were safe in bed long ago. I’m not betraying confidence. Stephen told me I could tell Mollie and Grace if he could tell Martin. But, Bab, dear, what is the matter? Have you seen a ghost?”

“Yes,” replied Bab, “or rather the next thing to one. Really, girls, I’m getting more than my fair share this time. Ruth was in the fight, of course, but none of you have seen the old man who haunts the place, and I have seen him three times. He seems to be a perfectly harmless old man, but it does give one a start to meet him at midnight in a dark hall.”

“Why, Barbara, are you dreaming? What does it mean?” cried Mollie, seizing her sister’s hand and pulling her over on the bed beside them. “Why haven’t you told us before?” she added with a sisterly reproach. “It’s no fair keeping secrets all the time.”

“I am tired of secrets, too,” said Bab, “I started with major and I’ll just finish the thing before I lay me down this night to rest.”

When Bab had concluded her ghostly tale the girls were really frightened. They tried the doors, opened all the closets and wardrobes and peered under the beds of both rooms.

“No one could climb up to these windows,” exclaimed Mollie. “But suppose there should be a secret door into one of these rooms?”

“What a horrible idea, Mollie Thurston!” exclaimed Ruth.

There was a sharp tap on the door. The four girls jumped as if they had been shot, and rushed together like frightened chickens.

“Girls,” said Miss Sallie’s voice, “go to bed this instant!”

“Right away, Aunt Sallie, dear,” answered her niece. When they were comfortably tucked in for the night, Ruth said to Bab:

“How do you suppose he knew your name?”

“I don’t know,” replied her friend, “unless I had a twin ancestor.”

At eleven o’clock the next morning the major’s guests assembled for a late breakfast. The boys were stiff from their encounters with the tramps, and Jimmie, especially, was an object of pity. The major looked serious. He had a disagreeable duty to perform, and he wished to avoid it as long as possible. Miss Sallie, alone, was animated and talkative. She had been entrusted with no confidences, and she felt the burden of no secrets. Neither did she guess that something was impending that was bound to surprise and horrify her.

José had not made his appearance and the major was relieved. The hour of reckoning was at hand, and he wished it over and done with. His old friend’s son! Was it possible that a child of José Martinez could have so far forgotten the laws of hospitality as to rob and intrigue, and play tricks on his fellow guests?

“What a quiet, dull lot of people you are,” exclaimed Miss Sallie, who at last began to notice the gloom that had settled on the party. “What is the matter?”

“I think it must be the weather, Miss Stuart,” replied Stephen, coming to the rescue of the others. “It’s a very oppressively warm day, and the air is so dry it makes me thirsty.”

“It’s the sort of weather, I imagine, they must have in plague-stricken southern countries,” observed Ruth, “where there’s no water,” she continued drawing the picture which held her imagination, “and people are dropping around with cholera or the bubonic plague.”

“Cheerful!” exclaimed Jimmie.

“I wonder where José is this morning,” said Stephen, voicing the thought of everybody in the room except the unconscious Miss Sallie.

“Suppose you run up and see,” suggested the major. “Tell him, Steenie,” he added, patting his nephew affectionately on the shoulder, “that I wish to see him in the morning room when he finishes his breakfast. And, Stephen, my boy, don’t be rough with him. Remember what an ordeal we’ll have to put him through later. Good heavens!” he groaned, “such a lovely boy! If it only had not happened in my house!”

“Perhaps he can explain, in spite of everything,” replied Stephen.

Presently he returned to the library.

“José is not in his room. He didn’t sleep there last night. His bed is made up and there’s not a wrinkle on it.”

“Why, where can he be?” cried the major. “He couldn’t have run away, could he?”

“Perhaps he is taking a morning walk,” suggested Martin.

“Did he take anything with him!” asked Jimmie. “I mean are his things in his room?”

“I didn’t notice,” replied Stephen. “We’d better ask some of the servants, first, if they have seen him this morning, and then go back and have a look for ourselves.”

But the servants could give no information. On examining José’s room they found everything just as he had left it. He had taken nothing in his flight, not even a comb and brush.

“Even his pearl shirt studs are here,” said Jimmie.

“How about his leather motor clothes?” asked Stephen.

“Here they are,” replied his friend.

“How about his motor cycle?” asked the major with a sudden thought.

They ran down stairs and through the open door, followed by “The Automobile Girls,” who were filled with excitement. At the garage the chauffeur was busy cleaning the motor cars.

“Is Mr. Martinez’s motor cycle here, Josef?” demanded the major.

“Yes, sir,” answered the chauffeur looking up from his work, surprised at the visit of so many people at once.

“Have you see him this morning?”

“No, sir.”

“Strange,” said the major. “I can’t understand it. He must simply have slipped out of the house and gone for a long walk.”

“Uncle,” said Stephen, “suppose we wait until after lunch.”

“Wait for what, my boy?”

“Why, for José, I mean. And then, if he doesn’t turn up, we had better search for him.”

The party sat about listlessly until lunch time. It was too hot to talk and the oppressiveness of the atmosphere gave them an uneasy feeling. José had not taken even a hat, so Stephen said, and it turned out that only the day before the Spaniard had entrusted the major with a large sum of money to be locked in the family strong box until his visit was over.

“Stephen,” exclaimed the major, finally, as the afternoon began to wane, “I can’t stand this any longer. The boy may have wandered into the woods and been attacked by some of those tramp ruffians. Order the horses. We’ll ride to the Gypsy camp and take the road to town. Tell the girls to explain the situation to Miss Sallie while we are gone.”

CHAPTER XX – THE FIRE BRIGADE

Ruth and Barbara related to Miss Sallie their adventures of the day before. She went through a dozen stages of emotion, and fairly wrung her hands over the tramps. The part about José she could not believe.

“That nice boy!” she exclaimed. “It is impossible.” Then she grew indignant. “What does John Ten Eyck mean by bringing us into this lawless country, I should like to know?”

“But, auntie, the major declares it was never like this before. The woods have always been perfectly safe. When Stephen and Martin were little boys they used to play in them with only Old Jennie to look after them.”

“Ruth,” cried Miss Sallie, “the major is one of the nicest men in the world, but he always would overlook disagreeable things. He runs away from anything that hurts. He may have overlooked the tramps and robbers, just as he has been blind to ugliness whenever he could.”

“He’s a dear,” said Mollie.

“Dear or no dear,” cried Miss Sallie, “this time we really must go. Tell the chauffeur to fix up the machine, Ruth, my child, for to-morrow we shall leave this barbarous place.”

“All right, auntie,” replied her niece, relieved that they were not to go immediately, since they all wanted to see the episode of José through.

Time passed, but the four horsemen did not return. The girls were sitting with Miss Sallie at the shady end of the piazza, watching the sun sink behind the forest. There was a smell of burning in the air that the sensitive nostrils of the chaperon had sniffed immediately.

“The wind must be blowing from the mountains to-day,” she observed. “I smell burning as plainly as if it were at our gates.”

“But, Miss Sallie,” said Grace, “remember that it smelt like this in New York last week.”

“My dear,” replied Miss Sallie, “I am perfectly familiar with the smell of burning forests, I have smelt them so often in imagination. Why, see, the air is filled with fine ashes,” she exclaimed, shaking out her lavender skirts with disgust. She had hardly spoken before a tall figure was seen hurrying across the lawn.

“It’s blind Jennie,” cried Ruth. “Perhaps she can give us news of the major or José.”

As old Jennie approached they could see she was fearfully excited. Her face was working and several times she waved her stick wildly in the air. Just then a strange thing happened. Half a dozen terrified deer appeared from the direction of the forest, dashed madly across the lawn and disappeared in a grove on the other side. Squirrels and rabbits followed by the dozens, while distracted birds flew in groups and circled around and around the tops of the trees.

“What has happened, Jennie?” cried Ruth, shaking the blind woman by the arm.

Jennie seemed to scan the company with her sightless eyes, sniffing the air wildly.

“The woods are burning,” she said. “The flames are coming nearer. They are slow, but they are sure. Everything is so dry. You must hurry, if you would save the house!”

“Save the house?” repeated Miss Stuart mechanically. “Do you mean to say there is danger of this house being burned down? Is the fire coming this way? Great heavens! Order the car at once, children. We must leave at any cost. This is the last straw!”

“But, Aunt Sallie,” urged Ruth, laying a detaining hand on her aunt’s arm, “you wouldn’t have us desert the major’s house, would you, and leave all these beautiful things to burn? Besides, we may be running away from the major and the boys. How do we know but that they are in the woods? They may need our help.”

“My child, we are not a fire department,” exclaimed Miss Sallie, “and if we are to save this beautiful house, how do you propose to do it?”

“If worse comes to worst,” cried Bab, “we can form a bucket brigade here, and keep the fire from getting to the house.”

“What about water?” demanded Miss Sallie.

“Don’t you remember the major said he had a well of water reserved for fires?” said Ruth.

“It may not be necessary to use the water,” Bab continued. “The first thing to do is to cut off the forest fire by having a trench dug on that side of the house. Everybody will have to get to work. Come on! We must not lose time.”

Miss Sallie ran into the hall and rang a bell violently. John, the butler, came at once.

“John,” she cried, speaking very rapidly, “the forest is on fire. Get every available person on the place as fast as you can, with shovels and hoes and help the young ladies dig a trench to protect the major’s house.”

John looked dazed, sniffed the air and ran without a word. Presently a bell thundered out in the stillness. It had not been rung for many years, but the employees on the place knew what it meant, and came running from their cottages, and the work of digging a trench beyond Ten Eyck Hall was begun. Each moment the air was growing more dense and a darkness was settling down which was lit up, toward the west, by a lurid glow. The heat was intense and fine ashes filled the toilers’ throats and nostrils. Birds, blinded by the smoke dashed past, almost hitting the workers’ faces. People came running from the burning forest, the old Gypsy woman and her granddaughter and other women from the Gypsy band. The men were bringing the wagons around by the road; old Adam and his wife, driving their wood cart and frantically beating the worn-out horse; and finally, the hermit, with his white locks flying. Ten Eyck Hall would seem to have been the refuge of all these terrified dwellers in the forest. They regarded it with pride and love. Even the Gypsies had sought its protection, and the gray, rambling old place appeared to stretch out its arms to them. Blind Jennie strode up and down the lawn, wildly waving her stick, while old Adam called to Miss Sallie:

“Where is the master? Where are the young masters?”

And where were the old master and the young ones? If ever they were needed, it was now!

In the meantime, the girls, leaving Miss Sallie to direct the digging of the trench, had run to the house.

“I think, Ruth,” called Bab, “we had better collect all the buckets and pails we can find.”

“Yes,” replied Ruth, “and the hose should be attached to the reserve well. John is attending to that. Mollie and Grace, run and get whatever blankets there are in the bed rooms, and close the windows all over the house.”

While John was attaching the hose to the faucet of the reserve well, Ruth and Bab invaded the enormous kitchen of the hall. The servants had fled. Only Mary and John could be depended upon. The pumping engine had been started and the tank was rapidly filling.

“O Ruth,” exclaimed Bab, “how careless of us to have forgotten the cars! The garage is nearest to the forest and the automobiles should be run out right off. We may need them if things get very bad.”

“Of course,” replied Ruth. “Where is the chauffeur? Did you ever know any of these people to be on hand when they were needed?”

Dashing to the garage, they cranked up the two machines and ran them out onto the lawn in an open space. José’s motor cycle came next.

“The fire has come,” cried Grace and Mollie running up with their arms full of blankets. They could hear the roaring, crackling sound as the flames licked their way through the dry underbrush.

“Where is Miss Sallie?” demanded Ruth. “She will faint in this terrible atmosphere.”

“There she is,” answered Grace; “she is overseeing the trench-digging. I think she has ordered them to make it broader.”

Miss Sallie, her lavender skirts caught up over her arm, was standing near the men, giving her orders as calmly as if she were in her own drawing room.

The line of forest about a quarter of a mile distant began to glow red. The girls clutched each other.

“There it is!” they cried. “And now to save the major’s house!”

Bab organized a bucket brigade with Mollie, Grace and the Gypsy women. John was ordered to manipulate the hose, while Bab and Ruth carried wet blankets over to the garage, the building nearest the line of fire. Then a cry went up from the men who were digging the trench. The flames, which had been steadily devouring the dried grass of the meadow dividing the garden from the wood, had reached the trench. A sudden gust of wind carried them over. Instantly a group of bushes caught fire; and, like an angry animal seeking its prey, a long, forked tongue licked the ground hungrily for a moment, paused at the gravel walk, followed its edge, eating up the short, dry grass in its path, and made for the garage. All this happened in much quicker time than it takes to tell it – too quickly, in fact for any precaution.

CHAPTER XXI – FIGHTING THE FLAMES

Never had “The Automobile Girls” displayed greater courage than at this critical moment. It was the time for quick action and quicker thought. The men who were digging the trench could not leave their work. They saw that, unless the trench were dug wider, it would be necessary to fight the flames back, and they were digging like mad to keep the fire from leaping the ditch again.

It was Mollie who saved them from a terrible explosion by remembering the house where the gasoline was stored just behind the garage, and John and Adam rolled the tank to a distance temporarily safe at least.

Bab had found a ladder somewhere. Placing it against the garage she had scaled it like a monkey, carrying under one arm a wet blanket the weight of which she was too excited to notice. She never quite knew how she shinned up the roof, but presently she found herself astride the pinnacle. Zerlina had followed close behind, with more blankets and together the two girls spread them over the smoking shingles. When the roof was covered, they let themselves down and began dashing water on the smouldering walls. The bucket brigade was working well under the direction of Ruth, and the garage was saved.

Then a line of clipped bushes running from the garden to the forest, suddenly burst into flames. A cry went up from the workers at this terrifying spectacle. To the girls, it seemed like a gigantic boa constrictor racing toward them, and, for a moment, they turned cold with fear.

“All hands must help here!” cried Bab, taking command, as she naturally did in times of danger. “Zerlina, tell the men to come from the trench with their shovels. Bring pails of water, all of you,” she called to the Gypsies, “and the rest of the wet blankets.”

There was a rush and a scramble. They tried to beat down the angry little flames, dashed water on to them, choked them with wet blankets, trampled on them, and finally fell back, stifled and blinded with smoke and ashes, only to find the gasoline house a burning mass. It had gone up like a tinder box in an instant, and was reduced to ruins.

“If we have any more gusts of wind like that last, Bab, we are lost!” cried Ruth, sobbing a little under her breath. “But, of course, if the worst happens, we can always take the automobiles. They can run faster than the flames.”

Back of the garage they could see another line of flames advancing like a regiment of cavalry.

“Great heavens!” cried Grace. “What shall we do now?”

“Don’t despair, yet,” answered Bab. “Those dividing hedges are very dry, but the flames don’t spread from them so quickly; and, besides, I believe the trench will stop them.”

“O Bab,” exclaimed Ruth, “do you think there will ever be an end to this? We are too tired to dig trenches, and the water is getting alarmingly low.”

“But there are two more cisterns,” replied the undaunted Bab.

Just then the wind, which, up to this time, except for a few brief gusts, had been merely a breeze, gathered new strength. Sparks began to fly from the burning underbrush in the wood. It had been a ground fire, owing to the long drought, and the trees still waved their green branches over the ruins at their feet.

Ruth seized Bab’s hand convulsively.

“Young ladies!” called a voice behind them. Turning, they confronted the hermit. “I am a very old man, but, if you will permit me, I will make a suggestion. Save what water is left for the roof, which should be deluged as soon as possible. The trench will stop the fire, but it cannot keep back the sparks and I see a wind has come up that is most dangerous.”

“Oh, thank you,” cried the two girls, seeing the wisdom of his suggestion immediately.

Miss Sallie, a tragic spectacle, came from around the house; her white hair tumbling down her back, her face gray with ashes and her lavender garments torn and wet.

“Girls,” she murmured, her voice trembling, from fatigue and excitement, “we have done all we could do for the major. I think we had better give it up and go while we can get away.”

“Let us have one more chance. Aunt Sallie, dearest,” begged Ruth, “and if that fails there will still be time to get away in the motor car.”

“What are you going to do now, child?” asked the poor woman distractedly.

“You go and sit down in one of the long chairs on the piazza and rest,” replied her niece, patting her hand tenderly, “and leave everything to us.”

The girls could hear the throbbing of the pumping engine somewhere below, as they dashed up the steps. John had connected all the cisterns and the machinery was working in good order. The candles and lanterns they carried hardly made an impression in the blackness of the great empty garret, but an exclamation from John called attention to the fact that the sliding partition was down.

“I never knew it to happen before,” he said, “except once when I was too small to understand.”

“How are we going to manage?” asked Grace, looking overhead.

“Through the scuttle to the roof,” replied Barbara, pointing to a ladder leading to a trapdoor.

John climbed up first, opening the scuttle, and everybody lent a hand in lifting out the hose he had brought along. Barbara and Zerlina followed to the roof, which was steep and much broken by pinnacles and turrets; yet in contrast with the attic it was quite light outside, and the girls could see perfectly where to step without slipping.

Only two people were needed, it was decided. Bab would not hear of Ruth’s coming, on account of the latter’s horror of high places. It was certain that Mollie and Grace were not agile enough for the experiment, and Bab and Zerlina had already proved what they could do when they scaled the garage roof.

The three girls left behind climbed onto a balcony just outside one of the attic windows and watched, with tremulous interest, what was happening on the roof.

Thus Zerlina and Barbara, with old John, were left alone on top of Ten Eyck Hall. They had a wonderful view of the smoking forest, the tops of whose trees were waving in the steadily rising wind. The trench had, indeed, stopped the course of the flames which had run along the meadow hedges, and there were no more lines of fire to be seen; but there was a bright glow toward the back and a sound of crackling wood. Then came a burst of flames and the onlooker saw that the stable was burning. A spark lit on Bab’s wrist; another touched her on the cheek, and presently a gust of wind brought dozens of them twinkling like shooting stars at night. They fell on the shingled roof, smouldered for a moment and went out. Others followed. It could be only a matter of a little while, thought Bab, before the hall would be in flames if they were not prompt with the water.

“It’s all right, Miss,” called John’s voice from behind the tank on the part of the roof over the attic. There was a gurgling noise and a swift jet of water burst from the nozzle of the hose.

With Zerlina’s assistance, Bab began watering the roof. But the tallest peak was beyond reach of the hose. There the sparks were smouldering into life and Bab distinctly saw a a little puff of flame lick out and then go back again like a cunning animal biding its time.

Bab ran over to the tank.

“John,” she called, “get a ladder and a pail.”

Together they unhooked the ladder attached to the tank and dragged it over to the high center peak of the roof. There was a pail, also, which they filled with water. While the old man held the ladder Bab climbed up, taking the pail from Zerlina. Several times the brave girl dashed water over the smoking shingles until every spark was dead. Then, standing on one foot, on the top rung of the ladder, Bab braced herself with a lightning rod running up the side of the turret, and leaned over to see if all were well on its other section. Below her she could see the girls on the balcony peering up at her with frightened eyes. Lifting herself entirely off the ladder, for an instant, Bab glanced around the turret. In slipping back, her foot missed the rung. The shock made her lose her grip on the lightning rod, and like a flash she slid down the steepest part of the roof now slippery from its recent wetting. There was nothing to hold to, nothing to cling to, and she closed her eyes from the horror that was before her.