Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer — Part 125

“Oh, I know what we can do,” cried Edith heatedly. “We can run to the fire-house and give the alarm!”

But Helen had already started forward, and Nathalie followed blindly, not even knowing where the fire-house was. Edith, like the flash of a flame, shot ahead of the two girls, and the next instant was tearing like some wild thing down the hill. In a few moments she had turned up a road and was speeding in the direction of a red house with a funny little cupola that loomed up above the small cottages surrounding it.

“Fire!” yelled the Sport, as she tore frantically along. Helen took up the cry, but Nathalie, although she tried to follow her example, only succeeded in making a hoarse sound that died away almost as soon as it left her whitened lips.

As her breath began to come in gasps she was half tempted to stop and let the other two girls give the alarm. But something told her that would not be the act of a Pioneer, and she struggled on until she arrived in front of the old ramshackle building with the red cupola which looked as if it had once done service as a barn.

“Oh, there is no one here!” panted Helen as she beat frenziedly with her two hands on the big wooden door. “It is barred inside.”

But the Sport, like a whirlwind, had flown around to the rear of the building, and the next moment was crawling through a window she had found unfastened. It took but a moment’s time to speed across the floor, give the bar a pull, and fling wide the door.

[Illustration: The rope had broken in her grasp.]

“We must ring the bell,” gasped Helen, as she glanced up at an old rope that dangled in the center of the fire-house from a big bell which hung motionless in the small tower above their heads.

The three girls sprang for the rope, but the Sport was the quickest and caught the dangling rope in her hands. Summoning all her strength she gave it a hard pull. The next instant, as the loud clang of the bell rang out, the girls heard a sudden imprecation, and looked hastily down to see the Sport with a rueful countenance sitting on the floor—the rope had broken in her grasp!

The girls gazed in wide-eyed surprise at their prostrate companion, and then, as they saw that she was not hurt, their sense of humor broke bounds, and they burst into merry peals of laughter, for she did look so comical sitting there with that “Where—am—I?” sort of look on her face.