"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.

"What--what's that?" gasped Tom, coughing and sneezing.

"Some chemical--I--I don't know what kind," spluttered Mr. Jackson.
"Have you any carboys of acid in there Tom, that might have exploded by
the heat?"

"No; not a thing. Let's try again."

Once more they tried to go in, but were again driven back by the
distressing fumes. The fire was eating down, now. There was a hole
burned in the roof, and by the leaping tongues of flame Tom could see
his aeroplane. It was almost in the path of the blaze.