"I'll not! Hurry! It's getting too hot here!"
The flames were now coming through the roof of the extension. When the
man was part way down the ladder, Bert, holding the little girl close
to him, started to follow.
"Give him a hand!" he cried to some of the young firemen on the
ground, and two of them came up the rounds to aid the watchman.
The old man reached the ground in safety, and Bert, with the child,
was half way down the ladder when, from a window, past which he would
have to climb, there burst out a terrible sheet of flame.
CHAPTER XXIV
AN ENCOUNTER WITH MUCHMORE
For an instant the crowd was horror-struck. It seemed that the brave
young chief, and the little girl, must perish. For it was next to
impossible to pass through that sheet of flame unharmed. The mass of
superheated air, generated by the varnishes and other material in the
extension, was forcing the flame out from the window in the shape of a
great fan. The ladder was beginning to blaze.
Bert paused and looked down to the ground. The distance was not too
great for him to jump, had he been alone, but, with the child, it
might mean that both would be seriously injured.
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