chilly draughts. When you push up the front stairs you must turn to
the left, and enter the small passage. Don't lose any more time, or it
will be too late! Go! please go!"

"We might make a human chain, and push up the stairs that way,"
suggested Phil Parker. "Then, even if one fellow does get dizzy
inhaling all that terrible smoke he won't be apt to drop down. Jack
could be at the end of the chain, always pushing ahead as we added on
to it here at the open door!"

Some of the others seemed to think that a pretty clever idea, judging
from the exclamations that arose all around. But Jack believed he knew
what might be a safer way than the scheme thus proposed.

"Hold on," he told the others, "I've got an idea that beats yours all
hollow, Phil. Leave it to me, fellows."

With that Jack sprang forward.

"I understand what he's got in his head!" cried Toby Hopkins. "It's
the grape-arbor! Don't you see it lies just under that window. Fact
is, a fellow can climb right up to the sash as easy as anything."

"Bully boy, Jack; you know how to manage it all right!" exclaimed
Steve, admiringly, though truth to tell he had never once doubted but
that Jack would discover a means to the end, as he nearly always did.

Jack was climbing fast. He knew that in a case like this seconds
count. That pungent wood smoke was a terrible thing, and if Carl lay
helpless at its mercy for a given period of time the chances were no