Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/123

 How a fire story is arranged is shown in the following example:

By sliding down a swaying extension ladder through fire and smoke, with an unconscious woman in his arms, Fireman Daniel Walter rescued her from death in a fire that early this morning swept through a five-story apartment house at 122 West Thirty-ninth Street, and caused a loss of $15,000. Mrs. Mary Owen, the woman saved, is in a serious condition as a result of inhaling smoke, but at the Harlem Hospital it was said that she would probably recover.

When the firemen on Truck 30 reached the burning building, they saw Mrs. Owen leaning out of a front window on the fifth floor, screaming for help and apparently preparing to jump to the street.

"Don't jump," shouted the firemen. "We'll be up there in a minute."

She stood motionless in the window with the smoke pouring out around her when the big eighty-foot extension ladder began to rise slowly in response to vigorous cranking. While the ladder was swaying like a pendulum as it ascended, Fireman Walter and Driver Frank Lawson began to climb up.

"Hold on just a second longer," shouted Lawson as he saw that Mrs. Owen was again leaning forward as if about to jump.

When he reached the top of the ladder a moment later, Mrs. Owen swayed and fell back into the room. At the same instant flames burst out of the windows on the third floor and swept through the ladder.

"You go down," called Walter to Driver Lawson below him on the ladder. "I'll get her and slide for it. Be at the bottom to catch us."

Lawson slid back through the flames, and Walter climbed into the