"What is it? What do you see?" demanded Songbird, as he realized that something unusual had attracted his chum's attention.
"Look there!" cried Tom, pointing with his finger. "Doesn't that look like a fire?"
"It surely does," replied the other, after a hasty inspection. "But it may be only some brush heap that a farmer is getting rid of."
"I don't know about that. Say, haven't they got a pair of field glasses here?"
"Sure!" and Songbird turned to get the article mentioned.
As rapidly as possible, Tom focused the glasses on the distant light, and took a careful look.
"Great Scott! it's a fire—and at Hope Seminary!" broke out the youth. "It looks to me as if the whole place might burn down!"
"What! A fire at Hope!" cried Songbird, and his words attracted the attention of all the others in the observatory. He, too, took a look through the glasses, and one after another the remaining students did the same.
"It certainly is a fire, and at the seminary, isn't it, Tom?"
Tom did not answer. He had already started to leave the building. Straight down the hill he tore, and then up to the building where he and the others had their rooms. He burst in on his brother like a cyclone.