CHAPTER XI

THE GUN CLUB

For a few moments after Jack's disappearance into the burning school, the spectators, pupils and teachers hardly knew what to do or say. The thick volumes of smoke that rolled out, even though they knew the fire in the boiler-room was under control, seemed to indicate that the conflagration was raging in some other part of the building.

"Ach! Dot brafe Ranger fellow!" exclaimed Professor Garlach. "He vill burned be alretty yet! Ach Himmel! Der school will down burn!"

"So! Sacre!" exclaimed the French professor. "It iss too true, zat which you speak. Terrible! terrible!"

"Und dose odder boys! Der flames vill gonsume dem also!" wailed the German.

"But ze flags--ze flags of our countries--zey are safe!" exclaimed Professor Socrat, and at this thought the two former enemies threw their arms about each other.

Meanwhile, Jack was dashing upstairs.

"I don't see any signs of fire," he said. "I believe it's only smoke, after all."

Up he went to the floor where Dock Snaith and his cronies had their rooms. The smoke was very thick, but there were no evidences of flame. And as Jack reached the trio, who were still leaning out of the window and calling for help, he saw that a lighted gasjet, reflecting through the clouds of vapor, had made it appear as if there were flames.

"Oh! will no one save us!" cried Snaith. "Fellows, I guess we're going to die!" and he began to whimper.

"No! no!" yelled Pud Armstrong. "Let's jump!"

"I'm--I'm afraid!" blubbered Snaith.

"Come on!" cried Jack, bursting into the room. "There's no danger. It's only smoke. The fire's 'most out."

"Are you--are you sure?" faltered Glen Forker.

"Yes. Come on! It's all down in the boiler-room."

Thus assured, the three bullies, who were the worst kind of cowards, followed Jack through the smoke-filled corridors. When the four appeared there was a cheer, and Professors Socrat and Garlach embraced each other again.

"It's all out!" cried Nat Anderson, running from the boiler-room. "Fire's all out!"

He was smoke-begrimed, and his thin clothing was wet through.

"Are you sure there is no more danger?" asked Dr. Mead.

"None at all," answered Nat.

Jack hurried up to join his chum. The snow was changing into rain, mingled with sleet, and it was freezing as it fell.

"Say, if I was you I'd go in," exclaimed a voice at Jack's elbow, and he turned to see a lad standing near him, whose lower jaw was slowly moving up and down, for he was chewing gum.

"Hello, Budge," said Jack. "Where have you been all this while?" For Budge Rankin, the odd character whom Jack had befriended by getting him the position of assistant janitor at Washington Hall, was clad in overcoat and cap.

"Me? Oh, I've been in town," answered Budge, stretching some gum out of his mouth and beginning to pull it in again by the simple process of winding it around his tongue.

"In town?" questioned Nat.

"Yep. 'Smynightoff."

"Oh, it was your night off," repeated Jack, for Budge had a habit of running his words together.

"Yep. Wow! My gum's frozen!" he exclaimed, pausing in the act of trying to chew it again. "But say," he added, "if the fire's out, you'd better go inside. It's cold here."

"You're right; it is," admitted Jack, shivering.

"Here, take my coat," spoke Budge, starting to take it off.

"Indeed, I'll do nothing of the sort," replied Jack. "I'll go in and get warm."

"I guess that's what we'd all better do," added Nat, for the wintry wind was beginning to make itself felt, now that the exercise in putting out the fire no longer warmed them.

"Come, young gentlemen, get inside," called Dr. Mead, and the students filed back into the school. The smoke was rapidly clearing away, and after a tour of the building, to make sure the flames were not lurking in any unsuspected corners, the pupils were ordered to bed.

Jack and his chums managed to get a little sleep before morning, but when our hero awoke, after troubled dreams, he called out:

"Say, Nat, there doesn't seem to be any steam heat in this room."

"There isn't," announced Nat, after feeling of the radiator. "It's as cold as a stone."

"Socker must have let the fire in the boiler get low," went on Jack. "Probably he thought the blaze last night was enough. B-r-r-r! Let's get dressed in a hurry and go down where it's warm."

They soon descended to the main dining-room, where to their surprise they found a number of shivering students and teachers. There was no warmth in the radiators there, either.

"What's the matter?" asked Jack.

"Ach, Ranger," explained Professor Garlach, "der fire from der boiler has avay gone, alretty, und dere is no more hot vasser mit vich more can be made yet. So ve haf der coldness."

"I should say we did," commented Jack. "Can't Socker start a new fire and get up steam?"

"I believe not," said a voice at Jack's side, and he turned to see his new friend, Will Williams. "I heard the janitor tell Dr. Mead something was wrong with the boiler. They have gone to look at it."

"I'm going to get my overcoat," spoke Nat, and his example was followed by several others, for the room was very chilly. Presently Dr. Mead came in, followed by Socker.

"Young gentlemen of Washington Hall," began the head of the school, "I regret to inform you that the fire last night has damaged the boiler in such a way that it is impossible to get up steam. I have just made an investigation, and the boiler will have to have extensive repairs. It will take some time to make them, and, I regret to say it, but I will have to close the school until after the holidays----"

"Hurray!" yelled Nat.

The doctor looked shocked. Then he smiled.

"Such feeling is perhaps natural," he said, "and I would resent it, only I know that Nat Anderson is a good pupil, who loves his school, as, I hope, you all do. But we cannot hold sessions in cold rooms. Now I suggest that you all retire to the general assembly room. There is a large fireplace there, and I will have the janitor build a blaze in it. You can at least have a warm breakfast, and discuss future plans."

There was a buzz of excitement at once, and the lads made a rush for the assembly room. There, a little later, somewhat warmed by a big log fire, they ate breakfast. The fire of the night previous, it was learned, had been caused by spontaneous combustion among some oiled rags, and the damage was only in the boiler-room. There had been no need for the fire department from the village, and though Sam had summoned it, the order had been countermanded before the apparatus started, so there was no damage by water to the school. Some smoke-begrimed walls were the only evidence in the upper stories of the fire.

"Well," remarked Nat Anderson, as Jack and several of his chums gathered around in a warm corner, "no more school for a couple of months, anyhow. Solidified snowballs! but I wonder what we'll do all that time?"

"Go home and rest up," suggested Bony Balmore as he cracked a couple of finger knuckles just to keep in practice.

"Rest! Why, we just had one during the summer vacation, Bony," remarked Fred Kaler.

"Oh, I can use more," said Bony. "What are you going to do, Jack?"

"I'm going hunting and camping," announced Jack quietly.

"Hunting?" questioned Nat.

"Camping?" cried Sam Chalmers.

"Sure," went on Jack. "I've been thinking of it for some time, but I didn't see any opportunity of doing it. I'm going camping and hunting after big game out West, and I wish some of you fellows would go along."

"We haven't any guns--that is, such as would do for big game," objected Nat.

"We can get 'em," declared Jack. "I was thinking we fellows who went camping before might organize a sort of gun club and take a trip. Now that the school is to close, it will give us just the chance we want."

"A gun club," mused Nat. "Say, but that's a fine idea! Petrified pedestrians! but we'll call it Jack Ranger's Gun Club! That will be a dandy name."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Jack quickly. "It won't be my gun club any more than it will be yours or Bony's or Sam's."

"But you're organizing it."

"That doesn't make any difference. Every fellow will pay his own way. We'll just call it a gun club."

But, in spite of Jack's objection, when the organization was perfected a little later, every one thought of it as Jack Ranger's club, even if they didn't say so.

"Where could we go hunting?" asked Nat. "There's no big game around here."

"I guess you're right," admitted Jack, "but I know where there is some, and I'm going."

"Where?"

"Out in the Shoshone Mountains, in the 'bad lands' district of Wyoming. There's the finest hunting in the United States."

"Hurrah for the gun club!" cried Nat. "I'm going, too."

"Well, don't leave me behind," pleaded Sam. "I guess you can count me in."

Jack looked around at the eager faces of his chums. Then off in a corner he saw the somewhat downcast countenance of the new boy--Will Williams.

"I wonder if he wouldn't like to go, too?" Jack said to himself.