Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters | Page 8

smoke helmet from the
exhausted fire-fighter, the young inventor shouted:
"I'll fill your place! See if you can grab a hat, Ned, and come on!"
One of the other firemen had two helmets, and he offered Ned one.
Pausing only long enough to see that Mr. Nestor and some others were
looking after the exhausted "smoke-eater," Ned raced on after Tom.
The two young men, following the firemen, made their way around the
end of the factory to the smoke-filled yard in the rear. But for the
helmets, which were like the gas masks of the Great War, they would
not have been able to live.
One of the firemen pointed through the luridly-lighted smoke to a small
structure near the main building. This was beginning to burn. With
quick blows of an axe the door was hewed down, and the rescue party,
including Tom and Ned, made its way inside. In the light from the
blaze, as it filtered through the windows, it could be seen that a man lay
in a huddled heap on the floor.
By motions the leader of the rescue squad made it clear that the man
was to be carried out, and Tom helped with this while Ned, using an
axe, cleared away some debris to enable the door to be opened fully so
the men could pass out carrying their burden.
The man was taken to the Nestor yard and stretched out on the grass.
Word was relayed to one of the ambulance doctors who were on the
scene attending to several injured firemen, and in a short time the man,
who, it appeared, had been overcome by smoke, was revived.
"Well, that was a narrow squeak for you," said one of the firemen, glad
to breathe without a mask on.

"Yes, it was touch and go," remarked the young doctor, who had used
heroic measures to bring the man back from the brink of the grave.
"But you'll live now, all right."
The revived man looked dully about him. He seemed somewhat
bewildered.
"Of what use to live?" he murmured. "You might as well have let me
die in there. Life isn't worth living now," and he sank into a stupor,
while Tom and the others looked wonderingly at one another.


CHAPTER III
TOM'S NEW IDEA
"What's the matter with him, Doctor?" asked Tom in a low voice of the
young physician who had been working over the man. "Do you think
he is worse hurt than appears? Is he dying, and is his mind wandering?"
"I don't believe so," answered the doctor. "At least I don't believe that
he is dying, though his mind may be wandering. He isn't injured--at
least not outwardly. Just temporarily overcome by smoke is what it
looks like to me. But of course I haven't made a thorough
examination."
"Hadn't we better get him into the house, Doctor?" asked Mr. Nestor,
who stood with Tom, Ned and a group of men and boys about the inert
form of the man lying on the grass. The rescued one was again
seemingly unconscious.
"The best medicine he can have is fresh air, the doctor replied. "He's
better off out here than in the house. Though if he doesn't revive
presently I will send him to the hospital."

The man did not appear to be so badly off but what he could hear, and
at these words he opened his eyes again.
"I don't want to go to the hospital," he murmured. "I'll be all right
presently, and can go home, though--Oh, well, what's the use?" he
asked wearily, as though he had given up some fight. "I've lost
everything."
"Well, you've got a deal of life left in you yet; and that's more than you
could say of some who have come out of smaller fires than this," said
one of the firemen who, with Tom, had carried the man out of the shed.
"Come on, we'd better be getting back," he said to his companion. "The
worst of it is over, but there'll be plenty to do yet."
"You said it!" commented the other grimly.
They went out of the Nestor yard, many of the crowd that had gathered
during the rescue following. The doctor administered some more
stimulant in the shape of aromatic spirits of ammonia to the man, who,
after his momentary revival, had again lapsed into a state of stupor.
"Who is he?" asked Tom, as the physician knelt down beside the silent
form.
"I don't know," said Mr. Nestor. "I know quite a number connected
with the fireworks factory, but this man is a stranger to me."
"I've seen him going into the main offices several times," remarked
Mary, who was standing beside Tom. "He seemed to be one of the
company officers."