The fisherman was badly burnt, hair, beard and eyelashes almost singed
off; but still he thought of rescue. "Fire at that miserable little chip
that holds it," he cried; "fire, since you can't hit it otherwise. Oh,
for an asbestos suit, and I would have styed." They fired pistol and gun
with no effect, till the lawyer, out in the skiff with Bill, got his
rifle sighted to the point in the blue flame, where he thought the
preventing ridge ought to be. He fired at close range, the ball hit the
rock projection, and at once the great block slid away into the lake,
with a splash that damped the flames with a column of spray, and
revealed an awful corridor of fire. No living creature was there, but
the detective, dipping his feet in the lake, took a boat hook out of the
returning skiff, and then, standing in the flames, hauled out two
charred masses, and extinguished them in the shallow water by the shore.
Mr. Terry came running down and crying: "Out on the wather wid yeez,
ivery mother's son av yeez; the foire's spreadin' an' the threes is
fallin'; fer yer loife, min." Mr. Bangs, still in command, asked:--
"How many will the skiff howld, Bill?"
"Seven, anyway," replied the Richards of that name.
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