eapt up and spread with a rapidity that
would have terrified anyone less absorbed or less determined than our
two heroes. The flames flew along the floor and benches, and Max and
Dale retreated down the room, overturning all the cans of oil and grease
they could find, and making it an easy matter for the fire to catch and
hold. The smoke, driven along in front of the flames, quickly became so
intolerable that they had to fly for relief to the staircase at the
farther end of the building.

Outside the workshop the burst of flame was the signal for a loud yell
of execration, mingled with cries of warning to the soldiers who had
entered the building in search of the hostile workmen reported there.
The soldiers trooped noisily out and joined the cordon still drawn about
the burning building. Messengers were dispatched to the fire-stations,
and in a few minutes a couple of engines arrived and set to work to
fight the flames. But though they were expeditious in arriving, the
firemen were not equally expeditious in getting their hoses effectually
trained upon the building. For one thing, the river had been largely
relied upon to furnish a water-supply, and no hydrants were close at
hand. Consequently the hoses had to be carried a great distance, and as
the yards were still in darkness, save for the lurid light shed by the
burning building, the hoses were badly exposed to the attentions of any
hostile workman who happened to be near the scene.

Dubec "happened" to be there, with two or three other men animated by
out-and-out hostility to the Germans, and waged fierce war upon the
hoses at every point at which they lay in shadow. By the time the
officer commanding the troops had awakened to the situation, the hoses
had been completely ruined, and the fighting of the flames delayed until
fresh ones could be brought to the spot.

In the meantime Max and Dale had ceased their efforts to extend the
fire, and had retreated to one of the stone staircases situated at each
end of the building. There was, in fact, little more to be done, for the
fire had got firm hold, and it seemed certain that the whole building
was doomed. The end by the staircase was almost free from smoke, and Max
and Dale lingered there while awaiting the moment when they should be
compelled to choose between death by burning or by the bayonets of the
German soldiers. They fell somewhat quiet during those moments, and when
they talked it was of the good old glori