the best that Hampton boasted. Glad enough of the aid of the Boy Scouts, the firemen greeted them

ony old nags to the engine, and others got the fire light

boys," s

de. The long rope was swiftly seized. Rob was

dy!" cam

" shout

ear the way. Men and women on their way to the fire scattered to right and left as the hose cart came lu

y Scouts," shril

ose cart went roaring by, speeding toward

ing believe to aid greatly by

janitor of the school was undergoing extensive repairs and he and his family ha

l shooting through the boy. What if they we

imself muttering half aloud as at the head o

ne," went up a sudden sho

reet. Its whistle wailed in a melancholy fashion and from its stack there streamed sparks

ried Rob, as he saw it,

rching to a dozen fires. They rushed the hose cart up on the sidewalk as the engine came swinging nearer. It looked quite inspiring w

er at first. She stood there apparently oblivious of the approaching fire engine for one instant. Then, although she

a dozen frenzied voices as several

She'll be kille

pring Merritt darted right in the path of the heavy machine. It happened so quickly that no

that instant, as a groan from the horror-stricken onlooker

ore him. As Merritt sprang backward with the agility of an acrobat, clasping the child in his arms

g down Merritt and the little girl, Ed Blossom had quite forgotten, under the stress of the moment, the trees that grew on each side of the road. The hub of th

. Then she snatched up the child and vanished in the crowd, leaving the Boy Scout

k of the engine. Steam was hissing in clouds from the crippled bit of apparatus. Merritt heard someon

tied them to a tree. But it was soon evident tha

nation, "but say," continued the foreman, enthusiastically, as if the breakage of the engine was on

s no time to linger by the engine. The thing to be done was to push on to t

our only chance to save the place now-and a mighty slim one," he added, as ag

!" cried a man as he saw. "In an hour's

re it rested. Under the foreman's directions the Boy Scouts invaded houses and borrowed and commandeer

k again to be refilled by those at the creek end of the line. With improvised staves, cut and broken from shrubs, the boys held the crowd back. The method was this: each lad held the ends of two staves, the other ends of which

part in the active scene before them, they schooled themselves into

zekiel Jones, the head of the school, and some of the other instructors running about in the brilliantly lighted grounds and saving armfuls of books and papers. The fire appeared to be on the middle fl

han work like fiends at passing buckets. It was necessary to be doing something, but eve

pale-faced man with sandy whiskers. He wore overalls and was hat

screaming, "not you

e man kept shouting in reply. "It's

the woman clung to him frenziedly. Now a fireman r

who stood next to Rob, "it's old

t replying, as a fireman hasten

men hastened back and forth. The woman, thinking that her husband had the baby, had rushed from the house at the first alarm. For his part, old Duffy, the janitor, never dreaming that the fire would gain such rapid headway, had tried

ll the effect that the feeble dribble supplied by the bucket

he watched the janitor and his wi

He gave one look at the re

ake my place in line," he sna

e school. He knew the interior of the old building like a book, and that would aid him in the

ied, his heart seeming to rise in h

ically, staring at him with frightened eyes. "See, the

her she would have fallen. When she opened her eyes again ther

ure dart from the fainting woman's side, shake off a dozen detaining hands, and then

a groan of despair,-the terrible voice of massed human beings seeing a lad go to his death. For, as the flames crackled upward mo