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Some said, afterwards, that the door was not properly secured, others spoke of a "back-draught," others suspected that the fire was over-fed. The volume of flame that leaped out licked the very faces of the two men. They recoiled with a bound and made a simultaneous rush for the air-brake in the forward passenger-car to stop the train and check the backward sweep of the blaze.
She was caught in a back-draught, or something of the sort. Well, thank God, we've seen the last of this firebug business. What's that?" Kennedy had laid the letter-file on the table. "Nothing. Only I found this embedded in Miss Wend's breast right over her heart." "Then she was murdered?" exclaimed McCormick. "We haven't come to the end of this case yet," replied Craig evasively.
Banta jumped in after him, and endeavored to get his head above water. While thus occupied, he glanced up, and saw the preliminary puff of the back-draught bearing down upon him. The lieutenant dived at once, and tried to pull his unhappy pipe-man with him; but he struggled and worked himself loose. From under the water Banta held up a hand, and it was burnt.
I hearkened to it by the hour, gapingly hearkened, and let my cigarette go out. Sometimes the wind would make a sally nearer hand, and send a shrill, whistling crash among the foliage on our side of the glen; and sometimes a back-draught would strike into the elbow where we sat, and cast the gravel and torn leaves into our faces.
He tries to, by opening vents in the roof as soon as the pipemen are in place and ready; but in spite of all precautions, he is often surprised by the dreaded back-draught. I remember standing in front of a burning Broadway store, one night, when the back-draught blew out the whole front without warning.
The next moment, a wave tilted and ran a dozen yards with her, but mercifully passed before it broke. A smaller one curved on the back-draught and splashed in over her gunwale as she took ground. But what knocked the wind out of our sails was this As the first wave canted her up, two men had rolled out of her like logs; and the others, sitting like logs, had never so much as stirred to help!
I hearkened to it by the hour, gapingly hearkened, and let my cigarette go out. Sometimes the wind would make a sally nearer hand, and send a shrill, whistling crash among the foliage on our side of the glen; and sometimes a back-draught would strike into the elbow where we sat, and cast the gravel and torn leaves into our faces.
The faint back-draught from the headsails fanned his cheek and chest with a wine of coolness, and he was in an ecstasy of appreciation of the schooner's qualities. "Eh! She's a beauty, Taute, a beauty," he said to the Kanaka lookout, at the same time stroking the teak of the rail with an affectionate hand. "Ay, skipper," the Kanaka answered in the rich, big-chested tones of Polynesia.
He was willing enough to talk about the science of putting out fires; of Department Chief Bonner, the "man of few words," who, he thinks, has mastered the art beyond any man living; of the back-draught, and almost anything else pertaining to the business: but when I insisted upon his telling me the story of the rescue of the Schaefer family of five from a burning tenement down in Cherry Street, in which he earned his rank and reward, he laughed a good-humored little laugh, and said that it was "the old man" meaning Schaefer who should have had the medal.
Blood dripped from Sergeant Vaughan's nostrils and ears. Sixty feet below was the paved courtyard; over against him the window, behind which he saw the back-draught coming, gathering headway with lurid, swirling smoke. Now it burst through, burning the hair and the coats of the two. For an instant he thought all hope was gone. But in a flash it came back to him.
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