Frantically he pushed the button that summoned the elevators. Down below, in the elevator shafts, could be heard the roar and crackle of flames.
"Let's try the stairs!" suggested Mary. "They seem to be free now."
She started down the staircase which went in square turns about the battery of elevators, and her uncle followed. But they had not more than reached the first landing when a roll of black, choking smoke, mingled with sparks of fire, surged into their faces.
"Back, Mary! Back!" cried Mr. Keith, and he dragged the impetuous girl with him to their own corridor, and back into his offices which, for the time being, were comparatively free from the choking vapor.
"We must try the windows, Uncle Barton! We must!" cried Mary. "Surely there is some way down—maybe by dropping from ledge to ledge!"
Her uncle shook his head. Then he opened the window and looked out. As he did so there arose from the streets below the cries of many voices, mingled with the various sounds of fire apparatus—the whistles of engines, the clang of gongs, and the puffing of steamers.
"The firemen are here! They'll save us!" cried Mary, as she heard the noises in the street below. "We can leap into the life nets."
"There isn't a life net made, nor men who could retain it, to hold up a person jumping from the tenth story," said her uncle. "Our only chance is to wait for them to subdue the fire."
"Isn't there a back way down, Uncle Barton?" "No, Mary!" He closed the window for, open as it was, the draft created served to suck smoke into the office, and Mary was coughing.
Uncle and niece faced each other. Trapped indeed they were, unless the fire, which was now raging all through the building, with the stairs and elevator shafts as a center, could be subdued. That the city fire department was doing its best was not to be doubted.