“So am I—down you go!”
He dropped her into Osceola’s waiting arms. As she landed safely and the young Seminole stood her on her feet, he called: “They must have another car, Dorothy. Put it on the fritz!”
Then without waiting to see whether this rather cryptic command was understood, much less executed, he zigzagged up the roof to the side of the house. With his back pressed against the shingles, he moved sideways to the window and peered in.
The room was full of smoke, but he made out a figure slipping through the doorway into the hall, and fired. The door slammed and someone shot home the lock on the other side. From below came a crash of broken glass.
“Good old chief!” muttered Bill and went in through the open window.
He realized instantly that the bed was on fire. He grabbed the flaming sheets and threw them on the floor, kicking a handsome rug out of the way. Determined to save the rug, if possible, for a moment he was at a loss how to put out the flames. He did not enjoy the thought of stamping out a fire with his bare feet. The room was dark, after the brilliance of the moonlight out of doors, and the acrid smoke stung his eyes and set him coughing. Flames began to shoot upward from the smouldering mattress. His eye sighted a wall switch by the head of the bed, and an instant later he clicked the room into bright illumination.
The door to the bathroom was open and Bill caught the sheets by the ends which the fire had not yet reached, dragged them across the room and tossed the blazing mass into the bath tub. He turned on both taps, and ran back to the bedroom.
He next seized the mattress, doubled it over at the center, and endeavored to smother the flames. In this he was only partly successful, for the charred padding continued to smoulder and smoke. In exasperation he rolled it up, carried it to the window and thrust it forth. Quick as a flash, he was on the porch roof and not until he had flung it to the ground did he pause to fill his lungs.
But he was impatient to discover what was happening to Osceola below stairs, while he had been engaged with this inopportune blaze. He darted back into the smoke-laden chamber, and made for the door to the hall. It was locked. He picked up his automatic from the chair where he had dropped it and was about to fire into the lock when the handle rattled. Someone in the hallway was trying the door.
“Open up or I’ll shoot—” snapped Bill, and was seized immediately afterward with a spasm of coughing that left him almost helpless.