From the blazing store great clouds of black smoke were pouring out, and firemen were rushing here and there.  Laddie looked for a while at the exciting scene and then he called to Freddie: 

“I’m going back and get my aunt.  She likes to look at fires.”

“All right; I’ll wait for you here,” Freddie said.  They had been standing not far away from the side entrance to the hotel, and as Laddie turned to go back after his aunt, Freddie walked down the street a little way, nearer the fire.

“I can see Laddie and his aunt when they come,” thought the small boy.

But just then a bigger crowd, anxious to watch the fire, came around the corner, and, rushing down the narrow side street, fairly pushed Freddie ahead of them.

“Here!  Wait a minute!  I don’t want to go so fast!” cried the little fellow.  “I want to wait for Laddie!”

No one paid any attention to him, and he was swept along, half carried off his feet by the rush, until at last he found himself standing alone, almost in front of the burning store.

“Oh, I can see fine here!” thought Freddie.  “I wish Laddie and his aunt would hurry and come here.  Wow!  This is great!”

Freddie was so excited watching the puffing engines, seeing the big black clouds of smoke, and the leaping, darting tongues of lire from the windows of the burning building, also watching the firemen squirt big streams of Water on the blaze, that he did not think of himself, and the first he realized was when some one shouted at him: 

“Stand back there, youngster!”

Freddie did not know he was the “youngster” meant, and stood where he was.

“Get back there!” cried the voice again.  “You may be hurt!”

But Freddie was busy watching the fire.  He wished he had brought his own little engine with him.

“I could squirt water on some of the little sparks, anyhow,” he said to himself.  “I guess I’ll go back and get it, and find Laddie and his aunt.”

Freddie was about to turn when suddenly he saw a fireman in a white rubber coat, which showed he was one of the chiefs, or head men, rushing toward him.

“Get back!  Get back!” cried this fireman.  “Don’t you know you’re inside the fire lines!”

Then for the first time Freddie noticed that back of him was stretched a rope, behind which stood the crowd of men and boys.  Freddie was so small that he had slipped under the rope, not knowing it.  He had either slipped under himself or been pushed by the throng.

“Get back!  Get back!” cried the fireman.

The next instant there was a loud noise, as if a gun had been fired, and Freddie felt himself being lifted up and carried along quickly.

CHAPTER XIV

THE STORE CAMP

The noise like a gun which Freddie heard was made when something exploded, or blew up, in the burning store, and at first Freddie thought he had been blown up with it and was flying through the air.