Garry ran, full speed, back, to upset the chemical fire extinguisher so that its contents, mixing, would generate a gas to drown out the small, but menacing fire that had already touched the matting running from the designing room corridor across that side of the space.
Don staggered to the window, drawing in great lungfuls of fresh air.
Gasping, choked, he strained his eyes toward the grounds outside. Chick, at the corridor door, looked up and down, bracing against the dizziness that swung him on his unsteady legs.
Garry drenched the matting, the smoking flare, the floor and walls in danger.
The fire out, he dropped the extinguisher, and turning, raced, with Don and Chick, recovering rapidly, at his heels. He, too, was choked; but at the first opening of the door Garry had, fortunately, thrown a sleeve protectingly across his face, so that he had breathed less of the fumes than his companions.
Up to the control tower balcony raced Garry. Don went down to the hangars. Chick took the midway corridor, searching each office.
“There he goes,” shouted a voice.
Garry, rushing to the balcony, saw a fleet figure running across the grounds, out of the good light, but discernible. Into the searchlight Garry ran, while Don and Chick, hearing his shouts of response to the voice from below, went, careless of risk to limb, down the stairways at front and back of the big building. Garry, struggling to get the searchlight turned in the proper direction to pick out the fleeing figure, to identify it in a flare of vivid light, explained swiftly to the control chief on duty.
By the time the light was in position, on the roof, and its mechanism adjusted, the beam probing the velvety dark night picked up a scene of swift action.
Don and Chick, close to the hangars, were running, full tilt, out of the grounds, along the roadway.