“Someone must be near us,” said Ralph. “I smell smoke and can hear a fire.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a sheet of flame, whipped by the angry wind, leaped into the air.
“The fire from the car has spread to the underbrush,” cried Tim. “Quick, Ralph, or we’ll be cut off from our plane.”
In another second their danger was clearer. Some vagrant tongue of flame, gnawing at the woodwork of the car, had reached out and fired the underbrush. The shower of the preceding night had been only enough to dampen the dust of the road and the brush and weeds were quickly devoured by the spreading flames.
Tim and Ralph raced through the underbrush, tearing their clothes to shreds as they crashed against stumps or fought their way out of tangles of briars. Their faces were scratched and bleeding but they did not stop. Their life depended on their legs and they used every ounce of their strength in the grim race against the fire.
The flames were roaring hungrily, advancing on them with a terrible certainty of purpose.
The reporters’ lungs ached cruelly as the boys plunged on, gasping for the breath that was needed to give them the strength to continue. The clearing in which they had left the Good News should be near at hand but still they crashed through the undergrowth. On and on they stumbled, the crackling of the flames spurring them to new effort.
“I’m all in,” gasped Ralph as he dropped in a pitiful huddle. “Go on, Tim, go on! I’ll make it out of here somehow.”
“Get up, Ralph, get up!” cried Tim as he tugged at his companion’s limp body.
“The fire,” he screamed, “the fire! We can’t stay here! We must go on!”