“Gretchen, are you out?”
She saw the empty bed.
“Caroline, fire!”
Mentally she checked off another empty bed.
She was tottering now but she was nearly through. Two more rooms and she would run outside herself. Could she make it?
Crash! Crack! Screams! Sirens!
Unaware that she was the object of a frantic search by the firemen who had glimpsed her pajama-clad little figure racing wildly from room to room, she finished her task. But where was the door? A great gust of smoke enveloped her. She put her hands in front of her and felt along blindly, but her hands met solid walls.
“I am trapped,” she cried frantically. “Help, help!”
Her breathing was becoming more and more difficult. When panic hit her, she became tired all over. Her legs wobbled. The arms which had flung open fifty doors and the hands which had turned on the alarm bell were useless now. They could not find an exit. Her eyes were red and running and she had squinted them to keep out the smoke until she could not open them wide. She, who had never fainted in her life, felt consciousness slipping away.
There must be air at the floor. “I’ll lie down till I get some oxygen in my lungs. But suppose I can’t get up? I’d be trampled to death. Oh—oh—please God—I must find a way out!”