Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

Fantasy Football Challenge - Library of Books for Football Fanatics

Fantasy Football Challenge presents
Jane Allen Junior

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where the girls waited, breathless but calmer now that men and means had come to their rescue. "One side! One side!" shouted the chief, and to the credit of that department it must be said his men stretched their line of hose along from the hydrant and up those steps, even through the crowd of trembling students, in regular fire drill time. Jane stepped inside the hall and was sniffing audibly. "Wait a minute!" she commanded. "We haven't located the fire yet and it may not be very much. The house is equipped with extinguishers," she informed the alert chief. "They may answer without water." The rubber coated men held their hose high and were ready to shout in signal to the man at the hydrant, while Jane took the chief upstairs. He never spoke but tramped ahead as if a word would imperil the dignity of the Wide Awake Hose Company. Neither did Jane venture further remarks for she was "gunning" for the fire and thinking of ghosts! Doors to right and left were promptly pushed open but no evidence of fire could be found. "Try the attic," said the chief finally, "rubbish might catch from a flue." At his order Jane turned into the narrow box stairway, lighted only by a flash in the hands of Chief Murry. The actual panic of that yell and its subsequent fire alarm was now subsiding in Jane's mind, and instead of Fire the whole situation assumed an aspect of Ghosts. In spite of her courage she was very glad the chief was at her heels, and when she finally reached the last narrow step and stood under the rafters, Jane Allen sent a sweeping eye over that dark attic. "Not here!" declared the fireman before she could see more than the inky blackness of the old garret, with only that one spot of moonlight pasted on the slanting roof by an invisible window. As he turned Jane felt obliged to follow, although she would have been glad to go further in and see what it was that moved over by the patch of moonlight. Something did move--she was sure of that, but a fireman and a chief could not be asked to investigate anything but smoke or flame, and neither element was discernible, so she followed down the box stairway to confront the waiting brigade. "Who pulled that box?" demanded Chief Murry, angrily. "I did," replied Jane. "But the alarm came from within and the students were out before I did so." "Well, there's no fire here!" he announced witheringly. "And you young 'uns better get indoors. Been in all the sheds and corners, Ben?" to his assistant. "Every inch, and there being no kitchen here, 'tain't likely a fire would be tucked away in a closet, though we looked thoroughly. Queer how the thing happened." Miss Gifford was now trying to march her charges back, but a good sized contingent refused flatly to comply with her orders. They answered her quietly but firmly. "They would never sleep another night in Lenox Hall. If it wasn't haunted it was surely queer." With the courage of juniors Jane and Dozia attempted to laugh the whole thing off, but the freshmen were determined. "How did YOU get over here?" suddenly demanded little Nellie Saunders of Dozia. '"I thought it was a rule to stay in your own dorm when a first alarm fire gong sounded in another building?" "'We were visiting," replied Jane so quickly Nellie thought the reply meant something, and was too absorbed in the crisis of the situation to further press her question. "But you children will be ill!" wailed Miss Gifford helplessly. "You simply must come indoors." "Come into the recreation room," insisted Jane. "We won't ask you to go back upstairs yet." "We just wouldn't go," declared Daisy Blaire. "If I can't sleep in another cottage I shall telegraph mamma to come and take me home this very night or day, whichever it is." This resolve met with hearty approval, for it was seconded from many quarters until open revolt or general mutiny seemed imminent. The firemen were driving out with the jog trot of a false alarm, and ghosts or no ghosts, Jane, Dozia and Miss Gifford, each and all realized that those frightened children must be persuaded to go indoors. Their bare feet alone made the matter imperative, if bath robes did somewhat lessen the danger from a cold night's exposure.

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