r door in the room, and toward this
the frightened girls poured in a mad stampede. Just outside was the
stairway with several sharp turns, and if the fugitives jammed up on one
of the landings it might mean maiming or death for some of them.

Quick as a flash, Nan Sherwood acted. She sprang to the danger door,
slammed it shut and put her back against it. The tide surged up against
her. The younger girls clawed at her, scratched her hands, did all in
their power to force her away from the door. But she held her place with
desperation, though her clothes were torn, and her hands were bleeding.

Then through the crowd came Linda Riggs, bowling the smaller girls out
of her way, her face as pale as death and her eyes almost bulging out of
her head with fright.

"Let me get out, Nan Sherwood!" she screamed, tearing at her with all
her might. "Let me out! Let me out! I'll die! I won't stay here to be
burned to death! Get away from that door! Let me get out!"

She tore at Nan and struck her in the face. She was a strong girl, and
doubly strong now in her rage and fright. But Nan braced herself and
still held the door, though her strength was fast ebbing.

Just then help came. Rhoda Hammond and Bess Harley caught hold of Linda
and pulled her away. They thrust her into a seat and held her down,
while Laura and others of the older girls pacified and soothed the
younger ones.

The worst was over. The steam had thinned out and drifted away. The
pupils slowly went back to their seats at the command of the teacher and
sat there, sobbing and moaning and weak from excitement. But the panic
had been quelled.

Now that the crisis had passed, Nan felt her strength leaving her, and
she had scarcely enough left to get back to her seat. She almost fell
into it when at last she reached it.

Just then, Dr. Prescott, who from the moment of the first alarm had been
in other parts of the building, helping to quell the excitement, entered
the room. She took her stand beside the teacher and held with her a
brief conversation in which she learned what had occurred in the room.
Then she spoke a few quiet words of assurance, telling the girls that
there had not been, and was not now, any danger and warmly commending
the bravery and self-control of the teacher and the older girls. She
then dismissed them.

A refreshing half-hour in their rooms did the girls a world of good, and
when the lunch gong sounded they gathered about the table in somet