Part 2

Owen was called upon as the most experienced in new cameras to tell Edith and the rest all about the Wizard; to explain the focussing scale, which Dr. Hartel said Captain Kodak really should call a “range-finder”; to point out features of the shutter, through which the picture could jump in the fraction of a second, or which could be set so that a long exposure might be given when there was not sufficient light for a “snap-shot”; to show the action of the slides in the plate-holders, the use of the diaphragm, and more other things about the camera than you would have supposed could be said about a box so small and innocent looking.

“And is it all loaded and ready?” asked Edith, looking down at Allan and McConnell, who were bending over the camera in some new investigation.

“Yes,” said Allan.

“It is a pity not to be able to try it now in some way.”

“Edith,” remonstrated Mrs. Hartel, “you are always impatient.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “I guess they all are—I think I am myself. The only difference is that Edith speaks out.”

“You could make a flash light,” Owen suggested. At this moment the clatter of a bell could be heard in the adjacent street and some one ran rapidly past the house.

“A fire!” shouted McConnell.

There was a pause during which every one listened breathlessly. Allan and McConnell were already at the gate. “It _is_ a fire!” Allan reported in a moment, “over by the East Church.”

“There is something to photograph!” exclaimed the Doctor.

“Could I?” cried Allan, with an appealing look to Owen,—“at night?”

“Why, I should think night was a good time to photograph fire,” Edith declared.

“It has been done,” Owen admitted.

“I’ll try it!” Allan caught up the camera. “Won’t you come, Owen, and help?”

They all were at the door in a moment.

“Allan!” called the Doctor. “You’ve forgotten your hat!”

“Be careful where you go,” warned Mrs. Hartel, as she pressed the hat on the boy’s head with a motherly firmness.

II.

THE FIRE.

EDITH at the gate could see the three boys running in the direction of the red light in the sky. Allan, in the lead, was hugging the camera under his arm. There was a sound of many feet, a murmur of excitement in the air, and distant hoarse shouts. A huge roll of black smoke drifted off to the north.

“I believe it’s the factory,” said the Doctor, at Edith’s shoulder. “Let us go too, Edith.”

Edith did not wait for a second invitation. She had been longing to follow the boys, and had hurried upstairs for her hat and was again in the hall before the Doctor had reached for his cane.

“Margaret,” called the Doctor to Mrs. Hartel, “perhaps you wish me to take you.”

“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Hartel. “I’m afraid I don’t appreciate the fun of fires. I had rather have all of you tell me about it.”

“We shall!” cried Edith from the walk.

It was as the Doctor expected. Flames had broken out in the southern wing of the factory. The eastern windows on the first floor of the wing showed an orange-red glare that made Edith think of the reflected light on window-panes when the sun is going down. The flames evidently had passed through to the second floor and were creeping eastward, though the dense masses of smoke made it difficult at times to tell precisely what parts of the building were actually burning.

The Hazenfield engines were hard at work. The ground trembled with the thump, thump, thump of the steam pumps, the black figures of the firemen scurried this way and that with many confused shouts, while the inky line of the hose twisted its way to the wing door of the factory.

It was at the wing door that some men were carrying out certain heavy cans which they placed at some distance from the burning building. These men were dripping with the hose water, the light of the flames glittering on their clothes and faces.

“Why don’t they pour the water through the windows?” cried Edith.

“Because they know they can’t save the wing,” replied the Doctor; “they don’t want to increase the draught by breaking the windows before the heat destroys the glass, and they are fighting indoors to keep the flames from spreading to the main building.”

Almost as the Doctor spoke four of the upper story windows blew out, a rush of flame following and mounting high over the roof.

“There!” exclaimed Edith, “they must pour in the water now!”

“Why, you almost seem glad, Edith,” said the Doctor.

“Well,” pleaded Edith, “it seems so foolish not to pour the water where most of the fire is.”

Two streams of water now leaped up to the open windows and sizzled and snorted under the blazing eaves. The flames greeted the serpents of water with a howl of rage and defiance, and fresh clouds of smoke arose at the places where they fought together.

“I wonder where the boys are?” queried Edith.

The Doctor had been wondering the same thing.

In a great circle about the burning factory were the faces of the spectators gleaming in the firelight. The stillness of the crowd was astonishing. The crackle of the flames could be heard with a strange distinctness, and the hoarse voice of the engine foreman sounded clear above all other voices. Only when the window-glass fell out or some other fresh event of this kind happened, did the crowd make a noticeable sound. Then there would be a general murmur running completely around the circle.

If the Doctor and Edith could have seen more distinctly in the uncertain light the embankment to the south of the burning wing, where the crowd was thinnest, they would have discovered Allan and his two companions grouped closely in earnest consultation.

As he had been running to the fire it had seemed very odd and foolish to Allan to be carrying the camera, and when they actually reached the scene of the fire the carrying of the camera seemed even more foolish than before. Yet it certainly made the whole affair seem more like an adventure to have the camera along. It seemed like going armed.

“Phew!” ejaculated McConnell, “it’s going to be a whopper! It’s all blazing inside! Come over here!”

“Let’s go around to where the engines are,” suggested Allan.

“Here’s a good place!” Owen called, pointing to the embankment.

The three boys clambered up the embankment in an excitement which only a fire can call out.

Allan’s first thought was of the camera. “Do you think I might try a snap?” he asked Owen.

“I should try one snap,” Owen suggested, “just as an experiment, and then try one or two seconds’ time.”

Allan fixed his “range-finder,” as Doctor Hartel had called it, for the full distance, which made the focus accurate at fifty feet and beyond.

“Wait a moment!” cried McConnell, “it isn’t blazing high now.”

Allan was locating the factory in his “finder.” Nothing but spots of fire were visible there. McConnell was eager for a glimpse of the little picture.

Presently Allan said, “I guess I’ll snap it now, Owen!” and he pressed the trigger.

“That’ll be great!” McConnell exclaimed.

“Did you draw the slide?” Owen asked.

Allan looked stupid. “No,” he confessed, “I didn’t.” Then he opened the box, drew the slide that hid a plate, set his shutter again, Owen stooped forward to see that the front opening was uncovered, and Allan pressed the trigger once more.

“This time I guess we caught it!” Allan said.

Owen now advised that they rest the camera on a large stone for making the “time exposure,” and he assisted Allan in setting the shutter so that the exposure could be made by opening and closing the sliding front of the box. Each moment the building became more brilliantly lighted. The flames had stolen across the end of the wing from east to west, and when Allan opened the little door for two seconds—McConnell quickly counted five in the same space of time—the main floor was more than half swept by the fire.

The efforts of the firemen to keep the fire in the wing seemed likely to succeed, though they could not have succeeded had there been any wind, particularly had there been a wind from the south. It was exciting to watch the battle between fire and water—the fire leaping blindly hither and thither like a wild beast; the water guided by skilful men who stood at their posts with hats pulled low to keep the blistering heat out of their faces.

While the boys were preparing for a third shot, the flames came streaming through a hole in the roof near the cornice, and fluttered like a great yellow banner thirty or forty feet long.

“Now!” screamed McConnell in great excitement, “there’s a picture for you!”

Allan pressed the trigger, and not a moment too soon, for a stream of water struck the opening in the roof, and the great golden banner of fire shrank rapidly and finally disappeared in clouds of steam and smoke. The boys found it hard to watch the fire and not wish that the firemen would place the streams in some spot they seemed to have overlooked. It was like watching a man paint a fence or hoe a garden. There were places which up to the last moment seemed likely to be forgotten altogether.

This was particularly true of a little river of fire in the cornice which slowly crept along until it seemed on the point of reaching the main building.

“I wonder why they don’t put out that place in the cornice,” Allan said impatiently; “I’m sure they don’t see that.”

Owen and McConnell had both noticed this stealthy movement of the fire.

“I almost feel like going over and telling them,” said McConnell. “If they don’t hurry it’ll surely catch the main roof.”

Then swish! came No. 2 engine’s hose, and the little stream of fire instantly disappeared. “Probably they know what they are about after all,” admitted Allan.

Owen laughed. “But I think, McConnell, you ought to go over and give them the advantage of your advice.”

All three were sitting on the edge of the embankment watching the waning fire, when a voice in the darkness called, “Hello, boys!”

It was Dr. Hartel and Edith. “We have been looking for you everywhere,” said the Doctor. “We watched for three boys in a bunch.”

“Yes,” laughed Edith, “there were different size bunches, and when we saw a bunch of three—”

“With a black box,” put in the Doctor.

“—with a black box, we knew it was you.”

“We have made three pictures of the fire,” said Allan.

“You mean three exposures, don’t you, Allan?” the Doctor asked, with his teasing smile. “Better wait until after the developing before talking about pictures.”

“Anyway,” persisted McConnell, “it was aimed right, and I heard it click.”

“And I saw that the front door was open,” laughed Owen.

“And the slide out,” added Allan.

“Of course,” said Owen, “I don’t suppose there will be much on the plates but the flames.”

“It is getting chilly, Edith,” said the Doctor, after a time. “I guess that you and I had better stroll home. They have the thing under control now. Don’t stay too long, boys.”

The Doctor had not gone far when Allan came running after them to say that Owen had suggested using some of his developer for the plates, and that he was to bring his dark-room lamp with him. “We are going to begin up to the coach-house to-night.”

“To-night?” repeated the Doctor.

“Yes,” returned Allan, “it’s only half-past nine, and Owen says we can do it all in an hour.”

And so, after waiting about fifteen minutes longer, until the fire had dwindled to a point at which the fire chief saw only an hour’s work ahead of him before leaving the blackened wing of the factory to the care of the watchman, the boys started for Owen’s and were not long in starting back eagerly for the coach-house.

III.

UNDER THE RED LAMP.

ABOVE the stalls in Dr. Hartel’s stable were three rooms, in one of which a coach-man used to sleep in the days when the place had been used by Judge Solling. The two other rooms were only partly finished. In one of these was a sink with running water, which had long been marked in Allan’s fancy as the focal point of the dark-room.

“We can’t fix anything here to-night,” said Owen.

“Of course not,” admitted Allan.

Owen had carried over two trays, “one for developing and the other for fixing,” and at his suggestion Allan procured an “agate iron” tray from the kitchen to wash the plates in. “Mind you fetch it back!” said Nora.

“Is it dark enough here?” asked Allan, turning to the back windows.

“Yes,” answered Owen; “but in the daytime you would have to cover up the windows in some way, and keep the daylight in the front rooms from getting in around these doors.”

Meanwhile Owen, in the red light of his lamp, was fussing with two bottles, a proceeding which excited the greatest interest on the part of the two other boys. Allan often had seen his father make chemical experiments, and he had seen Owen develop once before; but he was not a photographer then, and had not watched each motion with the same feeling of concern and anticipation.

“I forgot my graduate,” Owen complained.

“Shall I get one of father’s?” asked Allan.

“No, I can guess the amount pretty well in this old glass.”

Owen poured from each of his bottles, and then added water from the tap, inspected the trays critically, and turned the flame of the lamp a little lower. “Now,” he said, “we are all ready.”

“Ship ahoy!” came a voice from the stable stairs. It was the Doctor.

“Can’t we come?” That was Edith.

“Yes, yes! Come right up!” shouted Allan, running to the head of the stairs to pilot the newcomers, “though I don’t know where you are going to sit—we haven’t any chairs.”

“Oh, we shan’t mind that!” said the Doctor.

“We are just ready,” said Owen.

Allan thought it was good of Owen to say “we,” for he himself had taken but small part in the important preparations.

“I hope this won’t make you nervous, Owen,” the Doctor said. “I don’t know that I should want to perform an operation with so many onlookers.”

“I may not do the right thing,” Owen confessed; “but I only know how to do the one thing, anyway, and that is to pour on the developer and let the thing go.”

The Doctor laughed quietly. “I see,” he said, “you administer the medicine and let nature do the rest. After all, that is the about the most any of us can do.”

“Now,” asked Allan, “do you want one of the plates?” He had been standing with the plate-holders in his hand.

“Yes,” Owen answered, “we’re all ready.”

They opened a holder and took out one of the plates. Owen placed the plate in one of the trays, poured his developing mixture over it, and began gently to rock the tray, the spectators crowding about him in a semicircle.

“Of course,” said Owen, “it may be a long time coming up.” Presently he added, “It may be very much under-exposed, you know.”

At the end of five minutes the plate remained obstinately free from any sign of an image.

“I don’t see a thing,” said Edith.

“But, Edith!” expostulated Allan, “it sometimes takes a long while.”

“I think I have done the thing right,” murmured Owen, in perplexity. Then he suddenly turned to Allan. “Say, which one of the plates is this?”

Allan’s face took on a queer look in the red light. “I don’t know,” he answered blankly. It had not occurred to him before. “I know we didn’t double any.”

“I hope not,” Owen interposed anxiously.

“But I forgot to turn the holder-slides over to show which had been exposed.”

“Well,” said Owen, “we’ll have to try them until we find the three exposed ones. You had the four holders in the box?”

“Yes,” asserted Allan, “eight plates.”

At the end of another five minutes, Owen said, “I’m sure this can’t be one of the exposed plates,” and, with a last flip of the developer, he took the plate out and placed it on the shelf over the sink.

“And can’t you use it again?” asked Edith, sympathetically.

Owen shook his head. “No. _That_ one’s done for. Now,” he added, “let us try one of the others.”

“I’m sure this is one,” said Allan, repentantly. He felt as if he had made a bad blunder on his first photographic expedition. “I remember now which way I carried the holders,” and he handed Owen another plate.

The semicircle of faces drew about Owen’s shoulders again. It seemed a long while to wait, while Owen rocked the tray affectionately, as if it were a cradle, and Allan’s spirits had begun to fall, when McConnell cried, “There’s something!”

“It’s just a spot on the plate,” said Edith.

Owen shook the tray as if to dislodge something from the plate. “Why, there are several of them!” he cried. “They must be the windows of the factory!”

“Hooray!” shouted McConnell.

“Black windows?” asked Edith, perplexed.

“It is the fire,” said the doctor. “Light objects make a black image on the plate. That is why they can print from the negative. Daguerre made a positive—a natural image—on a metal plate which could not be duplicated. That was a daguerreotype. The English inventor of photography made negatives first on paper and then on glass. These could be used for making any number of positives or prints.”

“I see,” said Edith, her eyes on the plate. “Is anything more coming, Owen?”

“Yes,” said McConnell, “more little spots, and they are getting blacker. I think I see some flames shooting up.”

But Owen did not seem very sanguine. “It doesn’t seem to come out very well,” he mused. “I guess this one is the snap-shot.”

“Then there will be more on the two others!” cried Allan, hopefully.

They all were greatly interested to think that the other plates might have more on them. Owen’s guess proved quite correct. The other plates from the same holder came up in a much shorter time.

“Why, yes!” Edith exclaimed. “You can see the window-sash plainly, and the fire is spreading in this one.”

“You are right, Edith,” said the Doctor. “There are flames in several more of the windows here than in the other plates. And I can see faint outlines of the building here and there—and what looks like a stream of water, lighted up by the fire, in another place.”

“And so we have something after all!” Allan said, jubilantly.

The third plate displayed the fire at its worst, when the flames broke through the roof, and they were all watching the growth of the image under the soft swish of the developer when a sharp rap sounded on the stable door at the foot of the stairs.

“A call, uncle,” said Edith, resentfully. “They always want you when we want you, don’t they?”

The Doctor went to the door, and he could be heard talking in a low tone for some moments. Then he said, “Good night!” and came up again quickly.

“Didn’t you have to go?” asked Edith.

“Here’s something extraordinary, Allan!” the Doctor exclaimed; “the factory company wants your negatives!”

“My negatives!” Allan looked amazed.

“The fire pictures?” asked McConnell, staring at the Doctor.

“Yes. The superintendent has just told me that there is a possibility that the fire was started by an incendiary. But there is another question—in fact, they are both bound up together. It appears that those cans we saw them taking out contained naphtha, and that the naphtha was there without special permission from the insurance people. But the factory people say the fire started at some distance from the naphtha, and they have the evidence of eye-witnesses that it did start there. Moreover, they rescued every can containing naphtha. The cans were untouched and intact. Yet there will be a controversy, and the factory people, having heard that photographs of the fire were taken, the superintendent thinks they might be first-class corroborative evidence that the fire started on the east side of the wing, the side opposite the storage place of the naphtha,—would head off any trouble with the insurance people.”

“Well, well!” was all Allan could say.

“It did start on the east side,” declared Edith. “We all saw it.”

“And the camera saw it,” added McConnell, with great conviction.

Owen’s hands were trembling a little. “I mustn’t drop this now,” he muttered.

Then there was a rattle at the door below, and a step on the stair.

As the Doctor started forward again a man’s head appeared above the stair rail. It was the superintendent. His eyes blinked in an unaccustomed light. For a moment he did not seem to be able to make out the situation.

“I say, Doctor,” said the superintendent. “I’d like to be able to say to our president that we have secured these negatives. I’ll send you a check for fifty dollars if you’ll say they’re ours.”

“What do you say, Allan?” asked the Doctor, turning about.

Had it not been for the red light Allan probably would have looked very white in the face.

“I suppose they can have them?” said the Doctor when Allan did not seem to find words. “You will be glad that they can be so useful, and—how much did you say, Mr. Superintendent?” the Doctor went on, with an enjoyment of Allan’s agreeable stupefaction.

“Fifty dollars,” repeated the superintendent. “They’ll be worth that to the company. Anyway, I’ll risk making that offer. And I want the thing understood. Is it a go?”

“Oh, you can have them!” Allan said. And the superintendent repeated his “Good night!” shuffled his way cautiously down the dark stairs and was gone.

No one said a word until the superintendent closed the door below.

“Fifty dollars!” was all Allan said.

“I hope they come out well,” said Owen, fervently.

“I wish I could help,” murmured Edith.

“I think that Dr. Owen is doing the best that could be done with the patients,” laughed Dr. Hartel.

Then McConnell spoke up. “Gee whiz, Allan, you can buy a folding cartridge camera now!”

IV.

AN ILL-KEPT SECRET.

THE visit of the factory superintendent gave a new excitement to further work on the negatives.

“We certainly shall have to be very careful of them now,” said Allan.

“Yes,” said McConnell, “they are worth $16.66 apiece—oh, yes, and a fraction!”

“Just to think!” Edith exclaimed, “that this strange thing should happen on the very first night you have your camera.”

Owen was holding the third negative between his eyes and the lamp. “This is quite good,” he said.

“Yes,” Allan remarked. “And you deserve all the credit. We’ll have to share the prize money.”

“No, no!” Owen answered to this. “You could have done it all without me. It was simple enough.”

“It is simple enough when you know how, isn’t it?” laughed the Doctor. “Well, Allan, we’ll have to leave you with your prize plates. Mind you wash them carefully. If they are to be used as evidence they shouldn’t have any questionable spots on them anywhere. To be sure a flaw could be distinguished from a genuine light impression, unless it was a discoloration in the emulsion. That’s the reason the negatives themselves are better evidence than the prints from the negatives. The negatives could be tinkered so as to show fire in every window, I suppose. But the negatives themselves would show that this had been done. So many tricks can be done in photography that I don’t suppose that a photograph in itself could even be offered as proof. But it is pretty good corroborative evidence when you have the negative.”

“That is what this would be, isn’t it?” asked Edith, “corroborative evidence?”

“I presume so, if the matter goes so far. They probably can prove by eye-witnesses that the fire started on the east side of the wing, at least I should think so; but the camera will be a first-rate supplementary witness. We can testify that it was absolutely impartial.”

“Good fellow,” murmured Edith, patting the camera as if it were her dog Sandy.

After the Doctor and Edith had gone Owen and Allan stood the three plates in a bucket and placed the bucket under the tap.