"Come back at once!" ordered the colonel.
"Not until I save him!" answered Dick. "He risked his life to save my dog, and now I'll rescue him! Go back, Grit. Wait for me."
The dog whined but obeyed, and Dick ran on. As he passed by the second hose reel he grasped from it an axe. Straight for the door of the powder house he ran, the water from the two lines of hose falling in a spray around him.
The fire was now sufficiently out to permit of reaching the portal over the wet embers which still glowed faintly. The shed had fallen apart and what was left of it was burning on one side. Little tongues of flame spurted here and there on the main door.
Dick rushed up and with the axe began raining blows on the portal. His fellow cadets cheered lustily, and then devoted all their energies to keeping the water playing about their brave comrade. He was soaked through but in this lay his only safety, for the flames still were dangerously close.
There came another slight explosion inside the powder house. Evidently small cases of the gun cartridges were going off, but as they were all blanks there was no danger from bullets.
"Ray—are you alive—are you all right?" cried Dick, as he paused for a moment. There was no answer, and he rained the blows from the axe more madly than before.
With a crash the door gave way. Flinging his implement aside, Dick sprang into the powder house. There was an anxious moment, and the cadets and instructors waited in fear and trembling.
"He may be overcome by the powder fumes," said the colonel. "Poor lads—they may both be killed."
An instant after the colonel had spoken a form appeared in the blackened doorway. One form? No, two, for in his arms Dick Hamilton bore the limp body of Dutton.