"Merriwell?" and Ready looked round. "Refuse me, but I supposed he was the center of this intellectual group! Yes, where is Merriwell?"
"He went up there after you—to get you out of the fire!" exclaimed Bink, in great excitement.
"You haven't sus-sus-seen him?" demanded Gamp.
Some firemen planted a ladder against the swaying wall, as if to brace it, and a group came round the corner dragging a huge muddy hose, which they intended to train on another part of the hotel. But, so far, the fire had baffled all their efforts.
"Did he go up there?" Ready gasped.
"Sure!" said Danny. "He is up there now."
Ready's round, red-apple cheeks grew white.
"If he is up there now, he'll never come out!"
Bart stared at the shaking wall and the flaming windows—at the smoke clouds rolling from the doorways. The hotel had become a furnace. Then he stepped out, with a determined look on his dark face. Ready understood the meaning of that look.
"You'll go to your death if you try it!" he declared. "It is hotter than ten ovens, and some timbers fell from the second floor as I came out. If I hadn't rolled under the stairway when I fell, and thus had protection, I should have been cooked alive."