The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-12-16
IVES SAVES A LIFE
CHAPTER XXIv

Bonnie Bailey darted across the smoke-hazed living room and open ed the door leading to big hall.
 Tn an instant she was envel- oped ill black cloud. The force of it was audible, like some gas- giant suddenly released from cap- tivity.
 The six other girls near Wesley broke then in 8 literal stampede. One grabbed Wes himself, hugging him from the side and claWing wildly at his shoulder like a drowning person. Two others were sobbing in weird little hysterical noises even as they fled and one girl jumped, insanely, onto a chair. The Smoke-filled hallway, licking now with increasing tongues of flame, seemed to hold Wesley spellbound
 Ronnie had just stepped back to safety when Wes cried out.
 MT. Bailey - where is he? .. Your fatherl"
 Bonnie was coughing but she pointed through the smoke and Shrieked back, Upstairs! :. There!"
 She might well have shouted to MT. Bailey in person, for his voice answered. In the cracking and roaring now he seemed very far of.
 "Ronica!' he was crying in des- peration. 'Ronica |. RONica! Get out! Everything is burning! It's all around me and" He broke of in 8 sudden fit of cough ing and gasping.
 Wesley had run to the dining room door, opened it and closed it. He ran now to a second door at the end of the big living room, opened 1t crack and slammed it shut, too.
 Smoke and flame everywhere" :. he shouted. 'The hallway is cut of! MT. BAILEY!"
 They heard no answer. Ronnie ran to the hallway door again any, way and would have plunged into the black gases there but for Wes- ley. He jerked her back.
 "It will kill you, Ronnie!" he warned. 'We must - I = here! Hege!"
 He had glanced quickly around. Stretched diagonally and beautl- fully on the rustic wall of this living room was Mexican Serape, Q woolen fabric six feet long and Q yard wide, knit by hand in gor- ge0ls stripes and patterns. In one arm motion he jerked it down.
 on a table 8 vase held two dosen roses, a gift to Ronnie from Andre Girardeau, but Wesley didn't know that. Wes threw them out, took the vase and poured water over the crumbled serape. In another instant he had put the damp cloth around his head and disappeared in the hall blackness.
 He heard more shoutings. He had a vague impression of the f1ee- ing girls, but he knew these new noises were the voices of men. He could hear his own shoes pounding up the wooden stairs, and when he felt he should be at the top he yelled again, MIR. BAILEYl"
 Air under his improvised hood had become exhausted, especially when he opened a crack to look out. He could see nothing, and he dared not inhale. But he shouted once more. t:'MR. BAL LEVI"
 He still got no answer. The floating death was tangible now. He could literally feel the soot as well as the hot gases, and up here the flames roared as if blown to a fury by some huge forge This, his orderly mind knew, was due to normal suction up the in- sides of hollow interior walls and mp the well of the stairway itself. He knew that the stairs had been burning underneath because flames had touched his feet and ankles.
 A man can hold his breath @ minute or more in emergency. Wesley York had powerful lungs from long practice in swimming. Opening his eyes brought only pain, no visual help.
 Hence up here on the second- story landing. Wesley did char acteristic thing, he paused to thing-literally to force calm req soning. MT. Bailey had been awakened in his room, no doubt. He had thought of Bonnie and run out They had heard him call, and stop short. Where, then,