ck, for a second, to make sure that Dave
had followed safely.

Darrin was on his feet, and waved his hand reassuringly.

Then Dick Prescott leaned out, peering down at the front of the
burning building.

"There's Prescott!" shouted some of the most enthusiastic watchers.

"Hurrah. Old Gridley High School!"

But Dick paid no heed to the crowd. He was trying to locate the
window at which Grace Dodge had appeared, and was trying to contrive
how he would use a rope when one came.

In the meantime Darrin, having jumped to the lower roof, remained
where he had dropped, awaiting the arrival of the other fellows
with a rope.

After a few moments they came. Reade had a coil of inch rope,
which he waved enthusiastically.

"Wait until we get the rope uncoiled," called Greg. "Then we'll
lower some of us down to join you"

"Lower---nothing! Jump!" yelled Dave, in a stentorian quarter-deck
voice.

Greg obeyed, instanter. Tom flung the coil of rope below, then
followed it. Hazelton and Dalzell, an instant later, were with
their comrades.

"Come on, now," ordered Darrin, who had snatched up the coil of
rope and was darting over the roof. "Dick's waiting for us."

Prescott, still looking below, heard the swish of ropes on the
roof as Dave uncoiled and threw the lengths out.

"Good!" yelled Dick, looking back. "Tom, you take a turn or two
of the rope around that chimney, for anchor. Dave, you stand
here at the roof edge to pay out the rope. Greg, you and Dan
get in behind Dave to help on the hoist. See, Dave! That third
window from the end--- there's where the rope wants to go."

"You going down the rope?" queried Darrin dryly.

"Yes."

"Wait, then, and I'll tie some knots in it."

"No time for that," vetoed Dick sharply.

"I'll have to take my chances. Miss Dodge may be smothering,
or burning. Pay it out---fast!"

Dick watched until he saw that the rope had gone low enough, and
that it hung before the right window.

"Now, brace yourselves, fellows!" he called, between his hands,
for the roar of the flames and the crackling of timbers made some
sort of trumpet necessary, even at short range.

On his knees, his back to the street, at the edge of the roof,
Dick Prescott seized the rope.

Then, with a fervent inward prayer, he started over the edge, and
hung in the air, eighty feet from the ground.

Down below, the ever-increasing crowd let out a cyclonic, roaring
cheer. It was a foolish thin