ificance. Some guests, startled
out of their sleep, had the impulse rather to keep their doors tight
shut than to open them, and through the tinder-like dryness of the
place the flames roared up the boxed-in stairway as through a flue.

Bud Sellers heard the yells of the fugitive Lute, and before he had
time to investigate, saw the stairhead vomiting smoke and fire. As he
dashed for Alexander's room, another door opened through which Halloway
and Brent ran out, carrying their shoes and coats.

"Let me in," shouted Bud, hammering on the panels. "Ther house is
burnin' down an' ther steps is cut off."

At first there was no response, but at last the door swung in. It
framed Alexander, clothed in shirt and trousers--but barefooted, and
holding a pistol in her hand.

At the sight of Bud Sellers her face grew pallid.

"You!" she exclaimed with white-hot anger. "My paw lays over thar with
yore bullet in his breast--an' ye comes runnin' hyar ter me fer a way
ter git outen danger!"

The three men were crowding to the door but she stood barring it and
she did not give back an inch. In deliberation she went on. "He laid
a pledge on me not ter avenge him. Ef hit warn't fer thet, I'd kill ye
whar ye stands."

"Fer God's sake, Alexander!" The mountaineer's voice was shrill with
excitement. "Kill me if ye likes--but don't tarry. I come ter warn
ye. Ther winder's ther only way out--an' thar hain't no time ter lose."

As if in corroboration, the first puff of brown smoke eddied through
the open door. At first it came idly, driftingly, as if it had nothing
to do with haste. Halloway pushed both Sellers and Brent ahead of him,
and followed them in, slamming the door behind him.

"Talk outside," he commanded sharply. "Don't waste life-and-death
minutes in this hell-trap!"

Alexander gazed absently as though unable to readjust her trend of
thought so swiftly, then she said, quietly enough: "Thar's ther winder.
Go through hit ef ye likes."

As for herself she turned to the task of tying up her pack of
belongings with what seemed to the frenzied men insufferable
deliberation.

"This is the third floor," snapped Halloway whose head was already
thrust out of the window gauging possibilities of escape. "We'll have
to tear up sheets and make a rope of them."

Brent leaped promptly to the task but Alexander looked at the huge body
which blocked the window frame and a smile curled her lips. "You on a
rope o' sheets