“I think so,” Tom replied. “While it looks as though there was a solid ring of fire about us, there must be breaks in it here and there—places where there is comparatively bare ground, big rocks and so on, that will make a passageway for us. We must try to find one of these places, Mary. Now follow, but keep right behind me.”
Tom said this because he wanted to be prepared to save Mary should a sheet of flame suddenly spout up in front of them.
“Wait a minute!” cried the girl, as Tom would have made a dash toward a place where the smoke and fire seemed less dense and fierce.
“What’s the matter?”
“Can’t we use these? Wrap them about our hands and faces in case we get too near the fire?” asked Mary.
She pointed to two closely woven woolen blankets that had fallen out of the forward cockpit of the Hummer. Tom had stowed these away to be used on occasional trips when he went up to such an altitude that it was very cold, and a blanket about his legs and those of his passenger might add immeasurably to their comfort. With the tilting of the plane the blankets had fallen out shortly after Tom and Mary had climbed down from the tree.
“I’ve often read of persons wrapping their head in wet blankets to pass through flames,” said the girl. “And these two are wet, Tom, look, sopping wet.”
“Be careful they aren’t soaking in gasoline!” warned the young man, as Mary picked up the coverings. “I guess that’s what happened—the gas tank sprang a leak.”
Mary’s answer was to raise one edge of a blanket to her nose.
“It’s water!” she cried. “Not gasoline at all.”