"He's in there," he said. His face was white, and he spoke jerkily. "You can see his tracks. I crawled under. The board has been lifted up, but the blaze is all over the hole and I couldn't get through."
Something cried to be done. Something must be done. As Bunny tried to collect his thoughts, his eye glimpsed a tiny gap between the base of the door on the right and the top of the ramp. It stretched near the hinge side, high enough to take the end of a plank. With a shout of relief, he slapped the end of the board into the crevice. Using the two-by-four as a fulcrum, he began levering the door upward and outward.
"All together now! Smash that hinge!" he gulped, choking from a whiff of smoke that puffed into his face from the crack.
This command was unnecessary. Already the other two were throwing all their weight and strength on the long end of the lever.
"Hard! Everybody, hard!"
Came a creaking, groaning, splintering of the wood. It was the signal of the break to come. The Scouts were bracing for a last effort when, quite without warning or effort on their part, the bar stretched across the inside of the double door swung upward, the sides flew open, and out stumbled Specs. Himself, he had unloosed the holding bar and opened the doors.
"I'm all right!" he gagged. "Not burned! Get the car out quick! Leave me alone! I'll be O. K. in a minute, I tell you!" He staggered over to a plot of grass.
While Specs lay flung on the ground, blinking his smoke-reddened eyes and breathing heavily, the other three wheeled the car into the open just as the hose cart, carrying S. S. and Jump and a crew of four others, drew up at the hydrant.
"Prissler ran down the street and yelled 'Fire!' at the top of his voice," explained S. S. "That's how these men happened to know about it and run to the fire house. He—There he comes now, with another bunch he's roused."