e years ago. That was on Seventh Avenue at
One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street. A flat was on fire, and the
tenants had fled; but one, a woman, bethought herself of her parrot,
and went back for it, to find escape by the stairs cut off when she
again attempted to reach the street. With the parrot-cage, she
appeared at the top-floor window, framed in smoke, calling for help.
Again there was no ladder to reach. There were neighbors on the roof
with a rope, but the woman was too frightened to use it herself.
Dennis Ryer made it fast about his own waist, and bade the others let
him down, and hold on for life. He drew the woman out, but she was
heavy, and it was all they could do above to hold them. To pull them
over the cornice was out of the question. Upon the highest step of the
ladder, many feet below, stood Ryer's father, himself a fireman of
another company, and saw his boy's peril.

"Hold fast, Dennis!" he shouted. "If you fall I will catch you." Had
they let go, all three would have been killed. The young fireman saw
the danger, and the one door of escape, with a glance. The window
before which he swung, half smothered by the smoke that belched from
it, was the last in the house. Just beyond, in the window of the
adjoining house, was safety, if he could but reach it. Putting out a
foot, he kicked the wall, and made himself swing toward it, once,
twice, bending his body to add to the motion. The third time he all
but passed it, and took a mighty grip on the affrighted woman,
shouting into her ear to loose her own hold at the same time. As they
passed the window on the fourth trip, he thrust her through sash and
all with a supreme effort, and himself followed on the next rebound,
while the street, that was black with a surging multitude, rang with a
mighty cheer. Old Washington Ryer, on his ladder, threw his cap in the
air, and cheered louder than all the rest. But the parrot was
dead--frightened to death, very likely, or smothered.

I once asked Fireman Martin M. Coleman, after one of those exhibitions
of coolness and courage that thrust him constantly upon the notice of
the newspaper men, what he thought of when he stood upon the ladder,
with this thing before him to do that might mean life or death the
next moment. He looked at me in some perplexity.

"Think?" he said slowly. "Why, I don't think. There ain't any time to.
If I'd stopped to think, them five people would 'a' been burnt. No; I
don't think of danger.