. Brady repeated what he had told the older man. "What we've got
to do," he continued, "is to keep the roof on the house and the dairy
wet. Those sparks are flying all over them. What's that small building
over there?"

"That's the ice-house, Mr. Brady."

"Well, we won't bother about that. How many are there of us?"

"Six, I guess," said one of the men, but another corrected him.

"Old Man Meredith and Tom Young just drove in," he announced. "That
makes eight of us, and there's five of you----"

"Well, come on, then," Mr. Brady interrupted briskly. "You fellows get
your pails full and look after the dairy. Get on the roof, a couple of
you, and keep it wet down. The rest can lug water. Got a ladder handy?
All right. Somebody fetch it in a hurry. Hold on! Isn't there water in
the dairy?"

"Yes, sir, plenty of it."

"Then fill your buckets inside and hand them up to the men on the roof.
I'll take my gang and go over to the house."

The following half-hour was a busy time for the four boys. Mr. Brady and
Don stood precariously athwart the ridge of the house roof while Tim and
Clint and Tom, later assisted by others, filled buckets in the kitchen,
raced up two flights of stairs and a short ladder--often losing half of
their burden on the way--and passed them through a skylight to those
outside. A dozen times the dry shingles caught fire under the rain of
sparks, but Mr. Brady, climbing along the ridge like a cat, tossing
buckets of water with unerring precision, kept the fire at bay. It was
warm work for all. On the roof the heat of the fire was unpleasantly
apparent, while in the house it was stiflingly close and the work of
carrying the pails up and down stairs soon had the three boys in a fine
perspiration and badly off for breath!

When the engines arrived, heralded by loud acclaim from the onlookers,
who had by then multiplied remarkably, the barn was merely a huge pyre
of glowing hay and burning timbers, only one far corner remaining erect.
The piggery and adjoining buildings were ablaze in several places. The
creamery roof had caught once or twice, but each time the flames had
been subdued. If the engine and hose-cart and two carriages bearing
members of the volunteer fire department had been slow in arriving, at
least the fire-fighters got to work expeditiously and with surprisingly
little confusion. Don, pausing for a moment in his labour of passing
buckets to look down, decided that Brimfield had no cause