taken away by the speed of the car, and he had to hold his hat to
keep it from blowing away. "Why don't you play safe?"

"Don't you understand?" shouted Tom in his chum's ear. "The
wind is blowing the fire right toward those houses! Mary Nestor
lives in one of them!"

"Oh--Mary Nestor!" exclaimed Ned. Then he understood--Mary and
Tom were engaged to be married.

"They may be all right," Tom went on. "I can't be sure from
this distance. Or they may be in danger. It's a bad fire and--"

His voice was blotted out in the roar of an explosion which
seemed to hurl back the electric runabout and bring it to a
momentary stop.



CHAPTER II

NO USE OF LIVING!


Only momentarily was Tom Swift halted in his progress toward
the scene of the blaze in the fireworks factory. To him, and to
the chum who sat beside him on the seat of the electric runabout,
it appeared that the blast had actually stopped the progress of
the car. But perhaps that was more their imagination than
anything else, for the machine swept on down the hill, at the