“You—er—guk—made me swallow that—dough—nut the—heck—wrong way!” gasped Bob. “Ugh!”
He pushed suddenly on the brake pedal and the car came to such an abrupt stop that he and his companions nearly went through the windshield as the auto halted within a short distance of the blazing farmhouse from which came frantic cries for help.
[CHAPTER II]
THE END OF EVERYTHING
“Come on, fellows!” cried Jerry.
He was struggling to get out of the seat where three of them were rather a tight fit, considering Chunky’s plumpness. But Jerry managed it, at the same time thumping Bob on the back to dislodge the bit of doughnut that had gone down the hungry lad’s “wrong throat.”
The boys had arrived at a most critical time. The blaze had quite a start at the rear of the farmhouse, the flames flickering out of a first story window—evidently the kitchen—and eating their way up to the second story.
“I wonder if they’ve telephoned in an alarm?” cried Ned, for though there were no “pull boxes” on the country road that far out of Cresville, nearly every farmer had a telephone.
“Sounds like the new motor engine coming,” said Bob, with a cough, to dislodge the last remaining particles of the doughnut, which, by this time, he had managed to swallow.