But I just couldn't move.

There was something in my throat and my eyes that wasn't smoke, and I said, "I can stand it if you can--Wig." "Go on up, kid," he said, "we've--got--got--her--talking--now," and he coughed and choked.
"Go on up, Roy," Artie Van Arlen said.
Up on the roof all the fellows were sitting 'round the edge with their legs over, watching the black column in the sky, and shouting when they read the letters.

But I was thinking about those fellows down in that cabin filled with smoke and how they were doing that all on account of me.
"Pretty smoky down there," one of the Elks said to me.
"You said something," I told him.
"He's marking up the sky all right, if he can only stick it out," another fellow said.

"Who's down there with him ?" "Artie," I said.
"They'll stick it out, all right," Westy Martin said; "it's easier for Artie, he can stay near the window ." "Bully for you, Wig, old boy!" somebody shouted, just as the E in SAFE shot up.

And I knew what it meant--it meant that the words Roy is safe had been printed in great big black letters across the sky.
Then it came faster and faster and it seemed as if he must be turning that damper like a telegraph operator moves his key.