hes caught fire, and it was necessary to keep playing the hose
upon him. But he brought out his man safe and sound, and, for the
twentieth time perhaps, had his name recorded on the roll of merit.
His comrades tell how, at one of the twenty, the fall of a building in
Hall Place had left a workman lying on a shaky piece of wall,
helpless, with a broken leg. It could not bear the weight of a ladder,
and it seemed certain death to attempt to reach him, when Banta,
running up a slanting beam that still hung to its fastening with one
end, leaped from perch to perch upon the wall, where hardly a goat
could have found footing, reached his man, and brought him down slung
over his shoulder, and swearing at him like a trooper lest the peril
of the descent cause him to lose his nerve and with it the lives of
both.

Firemen dread cellar fires more than any other kind, and with reason.
It is difficult to make a vent for the smoke, and the danger of
drowning is added to that of being smothered when they get fairly to
work. If a man is lost to sight or touch of his fellows there for ever
so brief a while, there are five chances to one that he will not
again be seen alive. Then there ensues such a fight as the city
witnessed only last May at the burning of a Chambers Street
paper-warehouse. It was fought out deep underground, with fire and
flood, freezing cold and poisonous gases, leagued against Chief
Bonner's forces. Next door was a cold-storage house, whence the cold.
Something that was burning--I do not know that it was ever found out
just what--gave forth the smothering fumes before which the firemen
went down in squads. File after file staggered out into the street,
blackened and gasping, to drop there. The near engine-house was made
into a hospital, where the senseless men were laid on straw hastily
spread. Ambulance surgeons worked over them. As fast as they were
brought to, they went back to bear a hand in the work of rescue. In
delirium they fought to return. Down in the depths one of their number
was lying helpless.

There is nothing finer in the records of glorious war than the story
of the struggle these brave fellows kept up for hours against
tremendous odds for the rescue of their comrade. Time after time they
went down into the pit of deadly smoke, only to fail. Lieutenant Banta
tried twice and failed. Fireman King was pulled up senseless, and
having been brought round went down once more. Fireman Sheridan
returned e