time was a fine art. Men studied its alliteration, the gorgeousness of its
imagery, the blast of its fire. The art has been lost, existing still, in a
debased form, only among mule drivers, sailors, and the owners of certain
makes of automobiles. The men on the rope responded nobly. The roar of
their going over the plank road was like hollow thunder. A man dropped out.
Next day it was discovered he had broken his leg in a hole. At tremendous
speed they charged through the ring of spectators, and drew up, proud and
panting, victors by a hundred feet, to receive the plaudits of the
multitude. A handsome man on a handsome horse rode up.

"Monumentals on the fire! Eurekas on cistern number twenty!" he commanded
briefly.

This was Charles Duane, the unpaid fire chief; a likable, efficient man,
but too fond of the wrong sort of friends.

Now it became evident to Keith why Bert Taylor had urged them so strongly
in the race. The fire was too distant from the water supply to be carried
in one length of hose. Therefore, one engine was required to relay to
another, pumping the water from the cistern, through the hose, and into the
waterbox of the other engine. The other engine pumped it from its own
waterbox on to the fire. The latter, of course, was the position of honour.

The Eurekas fell back grumbling, and uttering open threats to wash their
rivals. By this they meant that they would pump water into the Monumentals
faster than the latter could pump it out, thus overflowing and eternally
disgracing them. They dropped their suction hose into the cistern, and one
of their number held the end of the main hose over a little trapdoor in the
Monumental's box. The crews sprang to the long brake handles on either
side, and at once the regular _thud, thud, thud_ of the pumps took up its