CHAPTER XXI
THE GAS EXPLOSION
It was with no very easy mind that Larry started for work next morning. Before he left for the office he warned his mother to keep her eye on Jimmy.
“What for?” asked Mrs. Dexter.
“Because there's been a lot of automobile accidents in the streets lately,” replied Larry. “I don't want Jimmy to get hurt.”
“I can beat an auto running!” cried the little fellow, who overheard his brother's warning.
“Well, you'd better not try it,” said Larry. “You might win the first time, if the auto wasn't going very fast, but the next time the machine would beat you, Jimmy, and knock you down, and roll you over in the mud, and, maybe, if it was a very bad auto, it would make your nose bleed.”
“Then I'll be careful,” promised Jimmy, with rather a frightened look on his face. “I'll stay close to the house.”
Satisfied that he had frightened him sufficiently to make his little brother keep his promise Larry went to work. All the morning, however, his thoughts were more on the threatening cipher he had received, and on the possibility of Jimmy being kidnapped, than they were on his assignments. Every time the reporters came in from police headquarters Larry was afraid lest they bring in a story of a little boy having been stolen.
But, as the morning wore on, and there was no bad news, Larry began to feel more relieved, and he began to think the threat was an idle one, after all. Still, he recalled that the week was not yet up. He found a chance to talk with Mr. Newton in the course of the day.
“Don't you think I'd better agree to sign the deed?” he asked.
“What's the matter, getting frightened about that cipher?” asked Mr. Newton.
“A little.”
“Well, Larry, I don't want you to do anything you will worry over. If you think you had better play into the hands of the gang, in order to prevent the possibility of them kidnapping your brother, don't let me stop you. All you have to do is to insert a notice to that effect in the papers. They are probably watching for it.”
“Do you honestly think they'll try to kidnap Jimmy?” asked Larry.
“No, I don't. It would be a pretty serious thing for them to do, mixed up as they are in other crimes. I don't believe Jimmy is in any danger.”
“Then I'll not sign,” decided Larry. “I'll show them I'm not afraid!”
It was shortly after one o'clock, and the first edition had gone to press. There had not been much news, local or foreign, since morning, and the reporters and editors were taking it a little easy.
It was a warm afternoon in early September, and the haze in the air indicated the approach of a storm.
“It would be just like something to break loose now,” observed one of the reporters, who was lazily lounging on a table, puffing at a corncob pipe. “It was just like this one afternoon when that big railroad wreck occurred. We thought we were never going to get any news that day, when all at once we had more than we could handle. That's always the way when”
“Boom!” A dull but powerful explosion sounded through the open windows, startling the reporters, and causing the one who was speaking to break off suddenly in his talk.
“Something went up that time,” exclaimed Mr. Newton.
“Are they blasting anywhere around here?” asked the city editor.
“No,” several replied. “That's an explosion of some sort. Can't be down at one of the forts, as it sounded too near.”
“Look out that window!” exclaimed Larry, pointing at one that opened on the north side of the office. “See the smoke!”
A dark pall of vapor, like an immense cloud, overhung a portion of the city, seemingly about a mile away from the office.
“It's one of the gas tanks!” cried Mr. Newton.
Just then the automatic fire alarm in the office, which was connected with the regular city system, began to tap the bell with quick, impatient strokes. There was dead silence in the room while all counted the number of the box.
“It's 313!” exclaimed a reporter. “That's the gas works—private box!”
“Newton, you and Larry with Smith and Robinson, jump out on that, quick!” exclaimed Mr. Emberg, grabbing for the telephone on his desk. “'Phone the story in!” he added. “We'll get out an extra if we have to!”
While he was giving these orders, which the four reporters, including Larry, obeyed at once, the city editor was getting into communication with the art department on the floor below.
“Send a photographer up to the gas works!” he called. “Big explosion there. Try and get a picture for the last edition!”
He hung up the receiver with a bang.
“Anderson, you get ready to take the story over the telephone!” Mr. Emberg went on. “You'll have to grind it out lively!”
Anderson got several pencils ready, arranged his typewriter with a long roll of paper in it, to avoid the necessity of changing sheets when he began to write, and sat down in front of a telephone that was in a booth, where a small table offered a chance to write out the notes he would take when the story began coming in.
“Jackson, call someone on the 'phone near the gas works, and see if you can get a line on how bad it is. We'll issue a bulletin. Sneadly, get ready to call up the City and St. Elmo's hospitals as soon as the victims have had a chance to get there. There's where they'll probably take 'em, because they are the nearest places.”
In a few minutes what had been a quiet office was transformed into a hive of activity. The reporters were assigned to their tasks, and those in the city room stood with tense nerves waiting for the first news that might tell of a frightful disaster. Mr. Emberg, like a general planning for battle, had posted all his forces where they could do the best and quickest work.
Suddenly Jackson, who had gone to the 'phone to call up someone near the scene, cried out:
“It's a bad one, all right!”
“Who are you talking with?” asked Mr. Emberg.
“I've got a party on the wire who lives about a block away. He says all the windows in the neighborhood are broken.”
“I don't care for the windows!” broke in Mr. Emberg. “What do they amount to? Is anyone killed? Find that out, if you can, and tell what happened.”
Jackson listened to what the man at the other end of the wire was saying. Then he called out:
“Some men were cleaning out a tank that had been emptied of gas! Some gas leaked in, and the thing went up! He says he saw a number of bodies thrown away up into the air, and the report is that seven men are killed.”
Before Jackson had ceased speaking Mr. Emberg was writing out a bulletin to be posted outside the office, giving a mere statement of the accident, and announcing that details would be found in the next issue of the Leader.
An instant later the telephone rang again.
“Answer that, Anderson!” the city editor exclaimed. “That's probably Newton on the wire. Write fast, tell him to talk fast, and make short sentences. We only have a few minutes for the second edition.”
The city editor proved to be a good guesser. It was Mr. Newton at the other end of the wire, and he had a partial story.
Briefly told, the accident was that a dozen men went into one of the big gas-holders to clean from the bottom an accumulation of oil that prevented a free flow of the vapor from the outlet pipe. Before the men entered through a small manhole in the top, all the gas had been drawn off.
That is, it was supposed all the vapor was out, but more either leaked in, or some was generated by the oil in the bottom of the holder. At any rate there was some vapor in the tank. One of the men was using his shovel to scrape some of the dirt from the sides of the holder, when his implement must have struck sparks from the iron side of the tank.
There was a terrific explosion that tore the big tank apart as if it was made of paper, and the dozen men inside were hurled high into the air when the top blew off.
As soon as possible men from other parts of the works ran to aid the unfortunates. Six of the men had fallen back into the tank, and were lying on the bottom. Four had been scattered about the yard, two badly wounded, and two dead.
It was this scene that confronted Larry, Mr. Newton, and the other reporters when they reached the gas plant. A big crowd had collected, summoned by the sound of the explosion, the sight of the big smoke-cloud, and the rush of the fire apparatus. For the latter there was no need, as after the first terrible burst of flame from the tank, there was no more blaze.
However, the firemen with their laders were soon called on for service. The two wounded men, who had been picked up and carried into the office, were now hurried to the hospital in the police ambulances that had answered the alarm.
“We must get those men out of the tank!” the foreman of the works cried. “There may be some alive!”
A score of men sprang forward as volunteers.
“Bring the ladders!” shouted the chief of the fire department, who always responded to an alarm from the gashouse district.
The firemen ran up with them. Two were placed against the outside of the tank. Up them swarmed several of the “smoke-eaters,” as the firemen are sometimes called. They were preparing to lower other ladders down on the inside when they were forced to come away because of the gas fumes.
Only for a little while, though, did they falter. Coming down they got their smoke-masks, made of fine wire sieves, with damp sponges placed in them. With these over their faces they prepared to brave death to rescue the men who might yet remain alive in the tank.
Down into the shattered holder they went, half a dozen brave men. Into the slimy black oil on the bottom they dropped. Then, working quickly, that they might not be overcome by the fumes that still continued to accumulate in the tank, each fireman shouldered one of the unconscious forms. There was no way of telling the living from the dead until they were carried up, and then down the ladders to the ground.
Swarming up the rungs with their burdens the six firemen came. When they reappeared over the edge of the tank they were met with a loud cheer.