fearful clap of thunder. Men were knocked down on the opposite
sidewalk, and two teams of engine horses, used to almost any kind of
happening at a fire, ran away in a wild panic. It was a blast of that
kind that threw down and severely injured Battalion Chief M'Gill, one
of the oldest and most experienced of firemen, at a fire on Broadway
in March, 1890; and it has cost more brave men's lives than the
fiercest fire that ever raged. The "puff," as the firemen call it,
comes suddenly, and from the corner where it is least expected. It is
dread of that, and of getting overcome by the smoke generally, which
makes firemen go always in couples or more together. They never lose
sight of one another for an instant, if they can help it. If they do,
they go at once in search of the lost. The delay of a moment may prove
fatal to him.

Lieutenant Samuel Banta of the Franklin Street company, discovering
the pipe that had just been held by Fireman Quinn at a Park Place
fire thrashing aimlessly about, looked about him, and saw Quinn
floating on his face in the cellar, which was running full of water.
He had been overcome, had tumbled in, and was then drowning, with the
fire raging above and alongside. Banta jumped in after him, and
endeavored to get his head above water. While thus occupied, he
glanced up, and saw the preliminary puff of the back-draught bearing
down upon him. The lieutenant dived at once, and tried to pull his
unhappy pipe-man with him; but he struggled and worked himself loose.
From under the water Banta held up a hand, and it was burnt. He held
up the other, and knew that the puff had passed when it came back
unsinged. Then he brought Quinn out with him; but it was too late.
Caught between flood and fire, he had no chance. When I asked the
lieutenant about it, he replied simply: "The man in charge of the hose
fell into the cellar. I got him out; that was all." "But how?" I
persisted. "Why, I went down through the cellar," said the lieutenant,
smiling, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

It was this same Banta who, when Fireman David H. Soden had been
buried under the falling walls of a Pell Street house, crept through a
gap in the basement wall, in among the fallen timbers, and, in
imminent peril of his own life, worked there with a hand-saw two long
hours to free his comrade, while the firemen held the severed timbers
up with ropes to give him a chance. Repeatedly, while he was at work,
his clot