The set must be dismantled and carried to a place of at least comparative safety. The lodge was no place for it at all. It was directly in the path of the flames and there was every probability that the little house would have to go with all its contents.
It was characteristic of the boys that it never entered their heads to try to save anything but their beloved outfit. Millions of dollars’ worth of timber was endangered, to say nothing of men’s lives, and their one thought was to rescue the radio set and get back to the fight.
It was a nightmare that they would never afterward forget, pulling at bolts and wires with burned and trembling fingers. Everything seemed unfamiliar, unreal, to them, the very apparatus itself seemed to fight their frantic efforts to save it. They had moments of thinking they must give up in despair.
But they worked doggedly on and finally accomplished what they had set out to do. The radio was dismantled and ready for moving.
“But where shall we take it too?” asked Jimmy, helplessly. “There’s no place——”
“Down by the lake,” Bob broke in quickly. “That’s the safest spot just now. Later, if we have to, we can come back for it.”
So down to the shores of the lake they bore the apparatus, then turned and, once more, ran in the direction of the fire.
“If this timber burns up,” panted Joe, as the thickened smoke in the air told them they were getting close to the blaze, “it will be an awful loss to Doctor Dale and the Old First Church.”
A few moments more, and they plunged again into the thick of the fight.
The Radio Boys found it harder now to fight against the onrushing flames. They had entered the battle full of fresh strength and energy, but now that had been in a large measure spent, and it was on sheer will power that they flung themselves once more into the inferno of heat and smoke.
If it had been bad before, it was almost unendurable now. Terrible blasts of heat smote down upon them, while billows of acrid smoke threatened momentarily to overwhelm them. Gasping and choking, with the hot fingers of fiery destruction clutching at them, they threw themselves face downward on the ground, seeking momentary relief from the searing torment. But even as they lay striving for a breath of pure air, their clothing smoldered and smoked, bursting into tiny flames here and there.