"Fire!" answered the young inventor, almost before he thought of the doctor's warning that Mr. Swift must not be excited. Tom wished he could recall the word, but it was too late. Besides Eradicate, down in the yard was shouting at the top of his voice:
"Fire! Fire! Fire!"
"Where, Tom?" gasped Mr. Swift, and his son thought the aged inventor grew suddenly paler.
"Aeroplane shed," answered the lad. "But don't worry dad. It's only a small blaze. We'll get it out. You stay here. We'll attend to it—Mr. Jackson and Eradicate and I."
"No—I'm going to help!" exclaimed Mr. Swift, sturdily. "I'll be with you, Tom. Go on!"
The lad rushed down to the yard, closely followed by the engineer, who had caught up another extinguisher. Eradicate was rushing about, not knowing what to do, but still keeping up his shouting.
"It's on de roof! De roof am all blazin'!" he yelled.
"Quit your noise, and get to work!" cried Tom. "Get out a ladder, Rad, and raise it to the side of the shed. Then play this extinguisher on the blaze. Mr. Jackson, you help me run the Humming-Bird out. After she's safe we'll tackle the fire."
Tom cast a hurried look at the burning shed. The flames were shooting high up from the roof, now, and eating their way down. As he rushed toward the big doors, which he intended to open to enable him to run out his sky racer, he was wondering how the fire came to start so high up as the roof. He wondered if a meteor could have fallen and caused it.
As the doors, which were quickly unlocked by Tom, swung back, and as he and the engineer started to go in, they were met by choking fumes as if of some gas. They recoiled for the moment.