ards, where the fire-boats fought for eight days and nights before they
gained the victory. But they _did_ gain it. Or it may be a fire back
from the river, like the Tarrant horror, where the land engines, sore
pressed, welcome far-carried streams from the fire-boats as help that
may turn the balance.

"Why, this fire-boat's only ten years old, sir," said Captain Braisted,
"and she's saved more than she cost every year we've had her." Then he
added, as his eyes dwelt proudly on the trim craft purring at her
dock-side: "And she cost a tidy sum, too."

Let us come now to that placid summer afternoon, to that terrible
Saturday, June 30, 1900, when tug-boats in the North River looked upon a
fire the like of which the river had never known and may not know again.
They looked from a distance, we may be sure, these tug-boats; for when a
great liner swings down-stream, a roaring, red-hot furnace, it is time
for wooden-deck craft to scurry out of the way. And here were three
liners in such case, the _Bremen_, the _Saale_, and the _Main_, all
burning furiously and beyond human help, one would say, for their iron
hulls were vast fire-traps, with port-holes too small for rescue, and
the decks swept with flame. It was hard to know that back of those steep
sides were men in anguish, held like prisoners in a fortress of glowing
steel that sizzled as it drifted--three fortresses of glowing steel.

Then up steamed the _New-Yorker_ and the _Van Wyck_, with men behind
fire-shields against the blistering scorch and glare, with monitors and
rail-pipes spurting out all that the pumps could send. The _New-Yorker_
took the _Bremen_, the _Van Wyck_ took the _Saale_; and there they lay
for hours, close on the edge of the fire, like a pair of salamanders,
engines throbbing, pumps pounding, pilots at the wheel watching every
movement of the liners, following foot by foot, drawing in closer when
they gained on the fire, holding away a shade when the fire gained on
them, fighting every minute.

"It's queer," said Captain Braisted, "but when you play a broadside of
heavy streams on a vessel's side, say at fifty feet, there's a strong
recoil that keeps driving the fire-boat back. It's as if you were
pushing off all the time with poles instead of water. And you have to
keep closing in with the engines."

"How near did you get to the _Bremen_?" I asked.

"Oh, we finally got right up against her, say after forty-five minutes.
You can cool off a lot