As they drew near to the hotel, Magruder remarked: "Say! ain't they a jag-factory somewheres round here? Come in and have one with me."
Stone went with him, and they drank the young lady's health, Magruder expatiating on her charms and on the happiness that awaited him when he should marry her. Then they crossed the street to the hotel and went up to their rooms.
As it happened, the room of Clay Magruder was exactly opposite John Stone's, so it was at their own doors that they parted for the night with a hearty grasp of the hand.
The sailor found the air of his room stifling. He threw wide the window and stood for a while looking out over the heated city as it lay around him in the darkness. He wondered what the girl was like whom Magruder had come East to meet, and he caught himself almost envying the cowboy. Then he sighed unconsciously and made ready for bed. As he wound up his watch he saw that it was nearly half-past eleven. Five minutes afterwards he was asleep.
He had been asleep but five minutes, as it seemed to him, when he was waked slowly with a slight difficulty in breathing, and with the feeling that all was not well. While he was still drowsy, he was conscious of a crackling sound like the snapping of dry twigs. When he opened his eyes he found that they smarted. The first long breath that he drew filled his lungs with thin smoke. In an instant he was wide awake. The meaning of the crackling and the snapping was not doubtful. The hotel was on fire.
He sprang out of bed and opened the door of his room. The corridor was full of smoke, and the sound of the flames was louder. At the bend in the hall where the stairs were, sharp tongues of flame were licking around the corner. Stone saw that his retreat that way was cut off, and that he must rely on the windows for escape. He crossed to the door opposite, pounded at it heavily, and cried "Fire! Fire! Get up at once!" till Clay Magruder answered. The floor of the corridor was hot beneath his feet as he went back to his own room, closed the door, and dressed himself as swiftly as he could, the murmur of the fire growing nearer and nearer.
When he was still in his shirt-sleeves he stepped again to the corridor and called across to Magruder.
The door opposite opened, and the cowboy appeared in it, half-dressed.
"The stairs are on fire," cried Stone; "we can't get out that way. We must try the windows. Take your sheets and your blankets and come in here."
"I wish I'd a couple of lariats here," said Magruder, as he went back for the bed-linen.