Frank Merriwell's Reward

by Burt L. Standish

This stairway was filled with smoke, and he felt the heat increase as he ascended, but he still had no trouble, except from the smoke. But when he reached the second floor his heart almost failed. The stairway on which Jack Ready had fallen, and the only stairway Bart could see, was wrapped in flames, which writhed and twined like serpents. The heat, too, was intense.

Bending close to the floor, to escape the smoke and heat as much as possible, Bart groped about, looking everywhere for Merriwell, thinking he might have fallen there. He saw him nowhere, and called loudly. But no sound came back except the roar of the fire. It even drowned all the noises of the street. But not for a moment did he think of turning back, though he knew how awful the danger would be if he tried to go up that burning stairway. He cast about for some sort of protection. A flimsy curtain of cotton material was stretched across a doorway. This Hodge pulled down and wrapped round his head, protecting his hands with it also as well as he could. Then he measured the stairway and its direction with a quick glance, and made a wild dash for the fire.

He went up the stairway at a run, with his clothes scorching and the protecting cotton cloth bursting into flame. It was a desperate spurt, but Hodge went through the fire, and with a bound threw himself beyond it, and felt, rather than knew, that he was in some kind of hall, where the fire was not so bad. He pulled aside the flaming cloth, pitched it from him, put up his scorching hands to shield his eyes, and looked about.

"Merriwell!"

The cry was one of joy.

"Merriwell!"

This time the exclamation held the tone of fear and dread. Frank Merriwell was lying in this space, which Bart saw now to be a wide corridor. Frank seemed unconscious. He was lying close against the wall, with his arms doubled over his head. Near him was a piece of timber which had fallen from the floor above. Other pieces of timbers seemed about to fall from the same place. This one, as Bart saw at a glance, had struck Merriwell down.

Bart's heart almost stopped beating when the thought came to him that perhaps Frank was dead. He leaped toward him, with a bound, uttering that cry of "Merriwell!" as he did so.

"Frank! Frank!" he cried. "Frank, are you much hurt?"

The roaring of the fire in the stairway sounded louder, than ever. Its noise was like that of a raging furnace. Bart's hands were scorched, but he did not feel the pain of the burns. Another piece of timber dropped from the floor above within a foot of where he stood. Others seemed about to fall. There was fire all round him, and the whole corridor seemed on the point of leaping into flame.