“Wake up, sah, dere am a big fiah, wake up!”

Jack and Percival were the first to be aroused, and to run out of their tent at the sudden alarm.

“There is a fire somewhere!” exclaimed Jack, smelling smoke and seeing a light in the sky.

“It is up at Van der Donk’s,” cried Percival.  “That is the direction, I am sure.  Hurry and get dressed, Jack.  We may be needed.”

Other boys were now coming out, asking questions, staring this way and that, rubbing their eyes or standing in a bewildered fashion, and wondering what all the commotion was about.

A messenger came running into the camp from the big house asking for help to put out the fire, which had just been discovered, and which had already gained considerable headway.

The fire was, indeed, at Mr. Van der Donk’s, and it was feared that the fine mansion with its costly furnishings would have to go, as there was no fire engine company within a mile or more, and it would be hard to get word to them at this time.

“Stir yourselves, boys!” cried the little colonel, bustling about half dressed.  “We can at least form a bucket brigade.  Form the lines quickly, Percival, and get the boys to moving.”

Jack, Dick and others quickly got the boys out, and, not more than half dressed, most of them, they quickly formed in good order, and went on the double quick out of the camp and toward the big house.

Every boy had a bucket to draw water from the river for washing purposes, and now they each seized one and went on the run toward the house.

It was a matter of a few minutes only to reach it, and once there Jack and Dick formed them into a double line reaching from the house to the well, and to an artificial pond on the grounds.

Once the line of buckets got started the boys went into the house, on the balconies and everywhere convenient, and the work went on rapidly.

Bucket after bucket was passed to the boys at the end of the lines, and passed back empty after their contents had been dashed upon the flames, the work going on rapidly.

The boys had been at work nearly ten minutes and had done much to stay the progress of the flames if not to subdue them when a fire company from Riverton arrived, and with a lot of noise and bustle, but with very little system, got to work to put out the fire.

Then their engine would not work, orders were misunderstood or not obeyed, and there was a great deal of confusion, during which the Hilltop boys worked steadily on and soon began to show the effects of their efforts, the flames being under control in many places and entirely out in a few.

Jack was hard at work taking bucket after bucket, and throwing water on the flames that poured from a corner of the piazza roof when Margaret ran up to him, almost fainted in his arms, and gasped: 

“My baby brother!  He is in the room up there in the extension.  No one has thought of him.  Save him, Jack!”