"Great guns!" shouted Fred Bentner, the first out of his bunk and to a window. "There's a fire all right, and it's over at the hangars."
The wild scrimmage which followed was probably repeated in every one of the half dozen near-by huts in which the respective crews were quartered.
Big Jack Carew went crashing out the door, still drawing his shirt over his head and wearing only one shoe. Don, in his own excitement, had kicked the other under a cot, and Carew had refused to take time to look for it. He was followed by Andy Flures, who certainly was not attired for a parlor reception; and the other two were only a few steps behind.
"I believe it's our own hangar," breathed Big Jack, his tones reflecting an agony of suspicion and suspense.
At that instant Bentner, who hadn't stopped for any shoes at all, stubbed his toe on a protruding rock.
"Holy cats!" he ejaculated, grabbing the injured foot and hopping along in terrible pain. "Oh, my golly, my toe!"
"Stick it in your pocket and come along," advised Andy, as he sped by.
Men were turning out of every hut in all sorts of garb, none of them fully clothed, some of them still in pajamas and whatever they could find first in the way of footwear. Meanwhile the great gong continued its clamor, there was the more strident banging of engine bells, and the townspeople came streaming forth, too, to add to the excitement.
And during this brief time little tongues of flame were leaping upward, apparently from the rear of the hangar in which was stored the great dual-motor plane in which our four friends hoped to be the first across the Atlantic.