Harvey J. O'Higgins

“ He could see that there was nothing on the brick roof to burn; the heat and not the flames would be their danger. The fire was at its worst in the light-well, and at the point farthest from it there was an enormous water tank, protected with a covering of tin, and supported across the angle of the walls on steel beams, so that, even if the roof should fall, the tank would not go with it. Here was the greatest safety. They would have water to prevent the heat from baking them alive, and they would have the tank to shelter them from the drift of smoke. ”

“ Hanrahan sighed again. "I'd like something to breathe better."
He was choking with heat and smoke. He rested his chin on the rung of the ladder. He was tired and dizzy. He seemed to be drifting, on clouds of smoke, blown about in storm and heat, a glowing spark above the flames. His mind wandered in a delirium of suffocation. He heard Gorman's voice, at a great distance, say, "Wind changed ... south." ”

“ They struggled against it, through the darkness, toward the light of fire over the parapet; and they looked down there, through the smoke, at the flames in the roof of an adjoining clothing house twelve stories below them.
Captain Ball had followed them. "Turn on your water," he bellowed above the storm to the men behind them ; and in a moment a feeble stream swelled the line of hose and gushed from the "pipe." He swore at it. "It can't spit past its chin," he said.
It strengthened slowly as they watched it. "Keep wettin' her down," he shouted in Gorman's ear. ”

“ It was not until sparks and burning wood-work began to pour down the elevator shaft that the possibility of their situation occurred to him. Fortunately, the building was "fire-proofed," and the progress of the flames would be slow.
He called two of his crew to get scaling ladders, and leaving his lieutenant in charge of the pipes, he ran to the southwest end of the building—to be farthest from the fire—and opening a window there, looked up. He could see no signs of fire in any window above him. "Looks all right," he told the men. "But you'll have to be quick. ”

“ There was a crash of breaking windows in the air-shaft. The flames roared up, flapping like a banner in the wind.
"Help!" Hanrahan screeched. "Help! Hel——"
Gorman clapped a hand over his mouth. "Well, you lobster," he said.
"Aw, don't, Bull," he pleaded. "Don't!"
Gorman stood up in the thickening smoke and looked down on him. "Say," he said, "if you got any breath to waste, you'd better save it for yer prayers. This roof's goin' to drop you in a hole so hot it won't leave enough of you fer the devil to raise a blister on. Shut up, will you?" ”

“ A fireman, sent by the lieutenant, came up shouting, "Fire's at the elevator shaft!" They turned and ran.
*⁠*⁠*
Gorman had gone down to the roof to get Hanrahan, and found him lying on his face on the bricks.
"The men're comin' up the ladders," he said. Hanrahan sprang to his feet with this new hope of life, and followed him around the tank to the parapet.
They looked down, to see the empty ladder, twenty feet below them, hanging in the flames, with a blazing rope dangling from the center of it into the smoke. "Hell!" Gorman said disgustedly. ”