om. Some students at the second floor
landing ventured up cautiously.

"Smudge over?" asked one.

"Mostly!" replied Judd.

"That sure was a bad one for so little a fire. Four of the nine
fellows who were suffocated haven't come to yet!"

"How's Cateye?" demanded Judd.

"He's one of 'em!" was the reply.

"Here,--somebody, take this hose! Quick! I'm a goin' down stairs,"
cried Judd, "This smoke's too much for me! ... Say, fellows,--where is
Cateye now?"

"They took him to dorm number two!"

Judd waited only long enough to pull a pair of trousers on over his
nightshirt, and to push his big feet into a pair of slippers. He
forced his way through eager crowds of questioners and elbowed many
fellows from his path.

The four unconscious men were laid out upon cots, drawn up in the
reading room. Doctor Bray, college physician, and several students,
were busy working over them. A great crowd stood in front of the
dormitory, not allowed to enter.

Judd fought his way through the crowd and stepped in at the door, his
face black from smoke and the upper portion of his nightshirt drenched.
Oole halted him.

"You can't go in there!"

Cries of, "Hold him!" "What do you think you are?" "Keep him out!" came
from the crowd.

"Cateye,--he's my room-mate!" said Judd, simply, and pushed Oole aside
as though he were a mere toy. Oole, remembering how narrowly he
escaped fate at the powerful hands of Judd once before, offered no
resistance.

"Come on! You let him in. Let us in!" some student shouted.

"Sure! He's no better than any of us!"

"Shut up, you guys!" bellowed Oole. "Cateye's in there and he's Rube's
room-mate! Guess he has a right to go in."

"I should say he has!" echoed Reynolds, coming up. "That guy put out
the fire and saved some lives besides!"

"What! Rube put out the fire?"

"Sure he did! There were only five of us on the third floor who
weren't suffocated. That was the nastiest, thickest smoke I ever got
into! Benz and Mann both woke up and went out the window after yelling
fire."

"Benz and Mann! The yellow,--" began somebody, but stopped short when
he saw the two fellows standing shamefacedly in the crowd.

"Rube let down Cateye, Potts, and Pole, and then got out the hose,"
went on Reynolds, the crowd listening eagerly. "About this time I woke
up and when I got the first whiff of smoke I lost my head. Rube saw
me, told me what to do, and McCabe and I lowered all the other