Chapter 17
"Wanted For Robbery!"
Choking and gasping for breath, feeling as if they could not stand the intense heat more than a moment longer, the young inventor and his companions looked at each other. Death seemed ready to reach out and grasp them. The mass of heated air was so powerful that it swung and tossed the Red Cloud about as if it were a wisp of paper.
"We must do something!" cried Mr. Damon, beginning to take off his collar and vest. "I'm choking!"
"Lie down in the bottom of the car," suggested Mr. Sharp. "The smoke won't trouble you so much there."
The eccentric man, too startled, now, to use any of his "blessing" expressions, did so.
"Can't you start the motor?" asked Tom frantically, as he stuck to his post, with his hand on the steering wheel, the elevation lever jammed back as far as it would go.
"I've done my best," answered the balloonist, gasping as he swallowed some smoke. "I'm afraid—afraid it's all up with us. We should have steered clear of this from the first. My, how it roars!"
The crackling and snapping of the flames below them, as they fed on the dry wood, which no rain had wet for weeks, was like the rush of some great cataract. Up swirled the dark smoke-clouds, growing hotter and hotter all the while as the craft came nearer and nearer to the center of the conflagration.
"We must rise higher!" cried Tom. "It's our only chance. Turn on the gas machine full power, and fill the container. That will carry us up!"