"Anyone in danger!" shouted the young doctor.

"Yes; a woman and her children. Also Reade and Hazelton!"

"It's all right, then," nodded Furniss, looking relieved. "Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton have gone to the aid of the woman."

"If I could only believe that!" gasped Proprietor Carter. "We've tried the ladders, and we've tried the corridors of the house. It's a raging furnace in there."

Dr. Furniss looked on rather calmly.

"I'm merely wondering on which side of the house those two engineers will appear with the woman and her children," he declared.

For the fourth time a ladder was being vainly raised at the rear.

Suddenly a shout rang out. In the bas.e.m.e.nt a window was unexpectedly knocked out from the inside.

Through the way thus cleared leaped a young man so blackened with smoke as to be unrecognizable, though it was Hazelton.

Before those who first espied the young man recovered from their surprise, a pair of arms from the inside handed out the body of a child to Hazelton.

Then came another child. Next the senseless body of a woman was handed out.

Dr. Furniss was the first to recover, from delighted amazement. In a bound he was on the spot, taking care of one of the children himself and bawling to others to bring the rest of the family.

Tom Reade, looking more like a burnt-cork minstrel in hard luck than like his usual self, sprang through the window way and followed.

"Here, you people--stand back!" roared Tom, elbowing his way along. "Dr.

Furniss and his patients want room and air. Stand back!"

"It's Reade!" yelled a dozen men in delight.

"Well, what of it?" asked Tom coolly, as he followed Furniss. "Was there anyone here who expected that I'd be lost?"

"Hurrah! Where's Hazelton?"

"Who wants me?" demanded the other unrecognizable, smoke-blackened figure.

"They're both safe!"

"Oh--cut it out," begged Tom good-humoredly. "You can't lose an engineer or even kill him. Doc, what's the report?"

"All three are alive," replied Dr. Furniss, "but they'll need care and nursing. Here, help me place them in my car. Someone get in and ride with me--I'll need help. You, Reade!"

"No," responded Tom with emphasis, as he looked down at his discolored self. "If the lady saw me when she opened her eyes, she'd faint again.

I'd scare the kiddies into convulsions. A bath for me!"

A man from the crowd quickly stepped into the tonneau of the car, ready to care for the woman and her children while the physician drove his car home.

"h.e.l.lo, Reade! My congratulations on your getting out. 'Twas a brave deed, too, to save that poor woman and her children."

Frank Danes pressed through the crowd about the car, reaching out to seize Reade's hand.

Into Tom's face flashed a sudden look that few had ever seen there.

It was a look full of contempt that the young chief engineer bent on the man who had greeted him.

"Your hand!" cried Danes, in a voice ringing with admiration.

"Don't you touch me!" warned Reade, his voice vibrating with anger.

"Why--what--" began Danes, then reached his own right hand for Tom's.

"Make way for this 'gentleman' to fall!" roared Reade, then swung a crushing blow that landed squarely in Danes's face.

The latter went down in a heap.

There had been no explanation of the seemingly unprovoked blow, but the crowd surged forward, s.n.a.t.c.hing Danes's body up as though he were something of which these men were anxious to be rid.

"Did he set the hotel afire?" demanded one man in husky tones.

"Did he?" chorused the crowd.

"Lemme through! Here's a rope!"

Then followed wild sounds that could not be distinguished as words.

These men of Paloma seemed bent upon fighting for the possession of Frank Danes, who, having now recovered his senses, emitted shrill appeals for mercy.

"Here's the fire-bug! Here's the human match!"

"To the nearest tree!"

"I've got the rope ready!"

In another thirty seconds Frank Danes would have been dangling from a limb of the nearest tree. Again Reade and Hazelton sprang into action.

"Stand back, men--please do!" begged Tom, fighting his way through the thinnest side of the crowd. "Don't kill any man without a trial."

"You know that this tenderfoot fired the hotel, don't you?" asked one man hoa.r.s.ely.

"I've reason to suspect that he did--"

"That's enough for us!" roared a hundred voices.

"But I've no positive proof of Danes' guilt," Tom insisted.

"To the tree with him!"

"Not while I've breath left in my body!" Tom blazed forth desperately.

"Come, Harry!"