"Did you like that picture, dear?" asked Nan of the little one.

"Hi! I liked it where the fat man slipped up on the soap at the top of the stairs and slid to the bottom where the scrub-woman left her tub of water. Do you 'spect that was _real_ water, Nan Sherwood? He'd ha' been drowned, wouldn't he?"

"I guess it was real water," laughed Nan. "But they wouldn't let him be drowned in a picture."

"I forget it's a picture," sighed little Inez, exhibiting thereby true dramatic feeling for the art of acting. To her small mind the pantomime seemed real.

Another reel was started. The projection of it flickered on the screen until it dazzled one's eyes to try to watch it.

"Goodness!" gasped Pearl Graves. "I hope that won't keep up."

The excited little Hebrew who owned the theatre ran, sputtering, up the aisle, and climbed into the gallery to expostulate with the operator.

There was an explosion of angry voices from the operator's box when the proprietor reached it.

The reel was halted again--this time without the projection of the usual "Wait a minute, please," card. The next instant there was another explosion; but not of voices.

A glare of greenish flame was projected from the box in the gallery where the machine was located--then followed a series of crackling, snapping explosions!

It was indeed startling, and there were a general craning of necks and excited whispering in the audience; but it might have gone no further had it not been for Linda Riggs.

It could not have been with malice--for the result swept Linda herself into the vortex of excitement and peril that followed; but the railroad president's daughter shrieked at the loudest pitch of her voice:

"Fire! fire! We'll all be burned to death! _Fire_!"

"Be still!" "Sit down!" were commands that instantly sounded from all parts of the house.

But the mischief was done, and Linda continued to shriek in apparently an abandonment of terror:

"_Fire! Fire!_"

Other nervous people took up the cry. Nearly half a thousand spectators were seated in the picture theatre and the smell of smoke was in their nostrils and the glare of fire above them.

For something, surely, was burning in the operator's box. The danger of the inflammable film was in the minds of all. A surge of the crowd toward the main exit signaled the first panic.

The outgoing rush was met by those who (not understanding the commotion) had been waiting at the back for seats. These people would not give way easily as the frightened audience pushed up the main aisle.

Those at the sides escaped more easily, for there was an exit on either side of the audience room. In the case of Nan Sherwood and her party, however, they were in the worst possible position as far as quick escape went. By some oversight of the fire inspectors the seats on several front rows had been built close against the sidewalls, with no pa.s.sage at that end of the rows for entrance or egress.

Bess was next to the wall, and she jumped up, crying: "Oh, come on, girls! let's get out. Walter! I say, Walter! I'm frightened. Let us go."

Grace was crying.

Nan hugged Inez close to her and looked to Walter, too, to extricate them from their situation. But Linda had reached across her cousin, Pearl Graves, and clawed at Walter in abject terror. "Oh, save me! save me, Walter!" she moaned. "I am _so_ afraid of fire--and in a place like this! Oh! oh!"

"Shut that girl's mouth!" exclaimed one man from the front. "Stop that screaming! There is no danger! The fire is confined to the box, and that is made of sheet iron. We're all right. Don't crowd!"

The panic had, however, spread too far.

The mob struggled and fought at the main doors. The police had been summoned; but they could not get into the building through the main entrance, and the side exits were toward the rear. Several people were knocked down and trampled on. A pungent odor of burning filled the theatre; the crackling of the flames grew louder and louder.

Walter had his hands full with Linda and Pearl, who had become likewise panic-stricken. Nan pushed Grace and Bess back toward the wall.

"Stand right where you are. We mustn't get in that crowd. We'll be killed," advised she, holding little Inez close to her.

"Save me! save me, Walter!" wailed Linda.

"I wish somebody would take this girl out of the way!" growled Walter Mason in much disgust, and far from gallant.

"Don't leave me!" shrieked Linda.

People began madly to climb over the seats--and over one another--to reach the side exits.

"How ever will we get out, Nan?" demanded Bess Harley, with keen faith in her chum.

"Keep still. Let us wait," urged Nan.

But at that instant red and yellow flames burst from the box where the picture projecting machine was housed. These flames began to lick up the furnishings of the balcony like so much tinder. Sparks and dense smoke were thrown off and both settled upon the struggling people below.

"Oh, Walter! Walter! We shall be burned," cried his sister.

The boy had never yet neglected his timid sister's cry. He somewhat rudely pushed Linda away and reached across Nan and Inez to seize Grace's hand.

"Pluck up your courage, Sis!" he cried, his voice rising cheerfully above the turmoil. "We'll get out all right."

"But _how_?" demanded Bess, in great anxiety. "Oh! see those sparks fly!"

"I see," said Nan, trying to speak calmly.

"They're falling right on those poor people--do, do look!" gasped Bess.

There was an open s.p.a.ce between the young folks from the Mason house and the crowd that was wedged into the exit at the head of the main aisle.

Upon this mob was pouring smoke and sparks. The flames ate up the bunting with which the balcony rail and pillars were decorated. The burning cloth floated down upon the heads of the excited people and threatened to set the dresses of some afire.

Pearl Graves had actually fainted in her seat. Linda lay across her cousin, sobbing and groaning. The rest of their party, whoever they were, had deserted the two girls.

"What under the sun shall we do, Nan?" whispered Walter, and Nan read the words on his lips rather than heard them; for the burning theatre was by this time a scene of pandemonium.

CHAPTER x.x.x

A FRESH OUTLOOK

Nan had already made up her mind what they must do. Despite the spread of the fire--and the heat of the flames already scorched their faces--she saw there was no escape for them by the front door of the building. And the chair-backs shut them off from the side exit.

"Get over the seat-back, Walter," Nan commanded. "Haul your sister and Bess over. I can climb over myself and take little Inez with me."