d his folks?" asked Toby just then, as they started
boy-fashion to elbow their way through the crowd, determined to get in
the front rank in order to see everything that transpired.

Jack was himself looking eagerly around, with the same object in view.
He remembered the sad face of Fred's little mother, who he feared had
seen much of trouble during the later years of her life. It looked as
though there might be still more cause for anxiety hovering over her.

"She must be in that bunch of women folks over yonder," asserted Steve.
"Yes, I just had a glimpse of that pretty little kid, Fred's sister,
Barbara. One of the women is holding the child in her arms, and she's
wrapped in bed clothes, which shows she must have been sleeping when the
fire broke out."

"I wonder what's happening over where that group of men is standing,"
remarked Toby, solicitously. "There, a boy has fetched a dipper of water
from the well bucket. Why, somebody must have been hurt, Jack."

"Let's make our way over and find out," suggested Steve, quickly.

Accordingly the three boys pushed through the various groups of
chattering men, women and children. The firemen had by now managed to
get to work, and the first stream of water was playing on the burning
house; though every one could see that there was little chance of saving
any part of the doomed structure, since the fire fiend had gained such a
start.

"What's the matter here?" Jack asked a small boy who came reeling out
from the packed crowd, as though unable to look any longer.

"Why, it's Fred Badger!" he told them in his shrill piping tones that
could be heard even above the hoarse cries of the fire laddies and the
murmur of voices from the surging mob, constantly growing larger as
fresh additions arrived.

"What happened to him?" almost savagely asked Steve.

"He was trying to haul some of the furniture out, I heard tell,"
continued the Chester urchin, "and he got hurted some way. He's lying
there like he was dead. I just couldn't stand it any more, that's what."

Filled with horror Jack pushed forward, with his two chums backing him
up. What fresh calamity was threatening the Badger family, he asked
himself. Poor Fred certainly had quite enough to battle against without
being knocked out in this fashion.

When, however, they had managed to press in close enough to see, it was
to discover the object of their solicitude sitting up. Fred looked like
a "drowned rat," as Toby hasten