er 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