"We're the veriest blockheads!" said Phil Way, as he looked over the lake and noted that here was the only place of real safety. "We've left the Andersons to be suffocated if they aren't burned up. Who'll go with me to bring 'em?"
"I'll go! Come on!" cried Paul, and Billy was not a second behind him.
"Wait!" Phil ordered. Then, "One of you stay here with Chip. Add all the logs you can to the raft. Make it bigger, stronger! There'll be eight of us, likely, that it will have to carry."
"Gee whiz! The car! The car, Phil! It'll be burned."
"No, it won't! Into the lake it goes. Water won't put it out of business permanently. Billy, will you stay?"
"Go ahead!" cried Worth and in five seconds Phil was driving the automobile in a way he had never done before.
Even before Anderson's place was reached the raging flames to the west of the road lit up the narrow trail with a frightful glare. But on and on the car flew.
The little clearing was reached in the nick of time. Great sparks and even flaming branches were raining down upon it. The smoke was stifling.
Huddled under some kind of an old canvas,–a tent cloth from some workman's camp on the gravel road, perhaps, Mrs. Anderson and the little girl were trying to escape the smoke and terrific heat. The grass all about the clearing was on fire. The little house must go, when the main body of the flames came closer, and very doubtful did it look that life itself could be saved in so exposed a place.
With a cry, "You can never come through the fire if you stay here, people! We've come for you in the car! The lake! It's the only chance of escape!" Phil made his presence known.