"Don't go in there!" Nan begged, catching the man's arm eagerly. "The house must be all on fire inside! You will be burned to death!"
"If there was flames, you'd have seen 'em before this," the man retorted. He brushed Nan aside, flung a leg over the sill, and the next moment disappeared within the room.
Jo, eager to explore the mystery for herself, was about to follow him recklessly when Nan seized her arm and drew her back.
"No, you don't!" cried the latter. "You have been in danger enough for one day, Jo Morley. Stay where you are!"
Even then Jo might have persisted in her attempt to enter the house, had not her anxiety for the invalid been greater than her curiosity.
"Let's get down to the ground," she proposed. "Maybe we can get into the house by the front way now. And I want to see how your Aunt Emma is, Nan."
Jo scaled down the ladder like the monkey she was on things of the sort, and the other girls followed more slowly.
On reaching the ground they found that the invalid had been taken by Annie down the road to the Jamesons' for first aid.
"But is she alive and all right?" asked Nan, shaking her informant impatiently.
The latter, a lad of about fourteen and conscious of his dignity, replied coldly: