The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound. George A. Warren

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СКАЧАТЬ and have the doctor there in a jiffy, too,” added Lub, who, while a clumsy chap, in his way had a very tender heart and was as good as gold.

      “Then get a move on you fellows,” advised Jack. “And while speed is all very good, safety comes first every time, remember.”

      “Trust us, Jack!” came the ready and confident reply, as the two scouts immediately began to seek a passage among the far-flung ice-cakes that had been so suddenly released from their year’s confinement between the walls of the dilapidated ice-house.

      Only waiting to see them well off, Jack and the other two once more turned toward the scene of ruin.

      “See, the boys have managed to get the other girl on her feet!” exclaimed Bobolink, with a relieved air; “so I reckon she must have been more scared than hurt, for which I’m right glad. What next, Jack? Say the word and we’ll back you to the limit.”

      “We must take a look around the wreck of the ice-house,” replied the other, “though I hardly believe any one could have been inside at the time it fell.”

      “Whew, I should surely hope not!” cried Tom; “for the chances are ten to one he’d be crushed as flat as a pancake before now, with all that timber falling on him. I wouldn’t give a snap of my fingers for his life, Jack.”

      “Let’s hope then there’s no other victim,” said Jack. “If there is none, it will let the ice company off easier than they really deserve for allowing so ramshackle a building to stand, overhanging the river just where we like to do most of our skating every winter.”

      “Suppose we climb around the timbers and see if we can hear any sound of groaning,” suggested Bobolink, suiting the action to his words.

      Several men from the other ice-house reached the spot just then.

      Jack turned to them as a measure of saving time. If there were no men working in the wrecked building at the time it fell there did not seem any necessity for attempting to move any of the twisted timbers that lay in such a confused mass.

      “Hello! Jan,” he called out as the panting laborers arrived. “It was a big piece of luck that none of you were inside the old ice-house when it collapsed just now.”

      The man whom he addressed looked blankly at the boy. Jack could see that he was laboring under renewed excitement.

      “Look here! was there any one in the old building, do you know, Jan?” he demanded.

      “I ban see Maister Garrity go inside yoost afore she smash down,” was the startling reply.

      The boys stared at each other. Mr. Thomas Garrity was a very rich and singular citizen of Stanhope.

      Finally Bobolink burst out with:

      “Say, you know Mr. Garrity is one of the owners of these ice-houses, fellows. I guess he must have come up here to-day to see for himself if the old building was as rickety as people said.”

      “Huh! then I guess he found out all right,” growled Tom Betts.

      “Never mind that now,” said Jack, hastily. “Mr. Garrity never had much use for the scouts, but all the same he’s a human being. We’ve got our duty cut out for us plainly enough.”

      “Guess you mean we must clear away this trash with the help of these men here, Jack,” suggested Wallace, eagerly.

      “Just what I had in mind,” confessed Jack. “But before we start in let’s all listen and see if we can hear anything like a groan.”

      All of them stood in an expectant attitude, straining their hearing to the utmost.

      Presently the listeners plainly caught the sound of a groan.

      CHAPTER III

      THE RESCUE

      “Jack, he’s here under all this stuff!” called out Bobolink, excitedly.

      “Poor old chap,” said Wallace. “I wouldn’t like to give much for his chance of getting out of the scrape with his life.”

      “And to think,” added Bluff, soberly, “that after all the protestations made by the company that the old house couldn’t fall, it trapped one of the big owners when it smashed down. It’s mighty queer, it strikes me.”

      “Keep still again,” warned Jack. “I want to call out and see if Mr. Garrity can hear me.”

      “A bully good scheme, Jack!” asserted Bobolink. “If we can locate him in that way it may save us a heap of hard work dragging these timbers around.”

      Jack dropped flat on his face, and, placing his mouth close to the wreckage where it seemed worst, called aloud:

      “Hello! Mr. Garrity, can you hear me?”

      “Yes! Oh, yes!” came the faint response from somewhere below.

      “Are you badly hurt, sir?” continued the scout.

      “I don’t know—I believe not, but a beam is keeping tons and tons from falling on me. I am pinned down here, and can hardly move. Hurry and get some of these timbers off before they fall and crush me!”

      Every word came plainly to their ears now. Evidently, Mr. Garrity, understanding that relief was at hand, began to feel new courage. Jack waited for no more.

      “I reckon I’ve located him, boys,” he told the others, “and now we’ve got to get busy.”

      “Only tell us what to do, Jack,” urged Wallace, “and there are plenty of willing hands here for the work, what with these strong men and the rest of the boys.”

      Indeed, already newcomers were arriving, some of them being people who had been passing along the turnpike near by in wagons or sleighs at the time the accident happened, and who hastened to the spot in order to render what assistance they could.

      Jack seemed to know just how to go about the work. If he had been in the house-wrecking business for years he could hardly have improved upon his system.

      “We’ve got to be careful, you understand, fellows,” he told the others as they labored strenuously to remove the upper timbers from the pile, “because that one timber he mentioned is the key log of the jam. As long as it holds he’s safe from being crushed. Here, don’t try that beam yet, men. Take hold of the other one. And Bobolink and Wallace, help me lift this section of shingles from the roof!”

      So Jack went on to give clear directions. He did not intend that any new accident should be laid at their door on account of too much haste. Better that the man who was imprisoned under all this wreckage should remain there a longer period than that he lose his life through carelessness. Jack believed in making thorough work of anything he undertook; and this trait marked him as a clever scout.

      As others came to add to the number of willing workers the business of delving into the wreck of the ice-house proceeded in a satisfactory manner. Once in a while Jack would call a temporary halt while he got into communication with the unfortunate man they were seeking to assist.

      “He seems to be all right so far, fellows,” was the cheering report he gave after this had happened for the third time; “and I think we’ll be able to reach him in a short time now.”

      “As СКАЧАТЬ