His host interested him enormously, especially his masterful way of handling his men.  He himself had been elected foreman of Hose Carriage No. 1 in the village near his father’s country seat, and still held that important office.  His cape and fire-boots fitted him to a nicety, and so did his helmet.  No. 1 had been called out but once in its history, and then to the relief of a barn which, having lost heart before the rescuers reached it, had sunk to the ground in despair and there covered itself with ashes.  He had been criticised, he remembered, much to his chagrin, for the way he had conducted the rescue party; but it would never happen again.  After this he would pattern his conduct after Monteith, who seemed to accomplish by a nod and a wave of the hand what he had split his throat in trying to enforce.  He did not put these thoughts into words; neither did he whisper them even in the ears of Podvine or Monteith—­the two men who understood him best and who guyed him the least—­especially Monteith, who never forgot that his college chum was his guest.  He confided them instead to Monteith’s big, red-faced foreman—­half Canadian, part French, and the rest of him Irish—­ who was another source of wonder.  Muggles’s inherent good humor and willingness to oblige had made an impression on the lumber-boss and he was always willing to answer any fool question the young New Yorker asked—­a privilege which he never extended to his comrades.

“What do I do when somepin’ catches fire?” the boss replied to one of Muggles’s inquiries—­they were sitting in the office alone, Bender and little Billy having gone fishing with Jackson.  “I’d blow that big whistle ye see hooked to the safety, first.  Ye never heard it?—­well, don’t!  It’ll scare the life out o’ ye.  If the mill catches before we can get the pumps to work it’s all up with us.  If the piles of lumber git afire we kin save some of ’em if the wind’s right; that’s why we stack up the sawed stuff in separate piles.”

“What do you do first—­squirt water on it?”

“No, we ain’t got no squirts that’ll reach.  Best way to handle the piles o’ lumber is to start a line of bucket-men from the lake and cover the piles with anything you can catch up—­blankets, old carpets, quilts; keep ’em soaked and ye kin fight it for a while; that’s when one pile’s afire, and ye’re tryin’ to save the pile next t’it.  Light stuff is all over in half an hour—­no matter how big the pile is—­keep the rags soaked—­that’s my way.”

That night before the blazing coals Muggles broke out on some theories of putting out a conflagration that made Bender sit up straight and little Billy Salters cup his ears in attention.  Monteith also craned his neck to listen.

“Who the devil taught you that, Mixey?” asked
Bender.  “You talk as if you were Chief of the
Big Six.”

“Why, any fireman knows that.  I’ve been running with a machine for years.”  The calm way with which Muggles said this, shaking the ashes from his cigar as he spoke, showed a certain self-reliance.  “Out in our village I’m foreman of the Hose Company.”