Frank Merriwell's Reward

by Burt L. Standish

Hodge lifted Merry's unconscious form and faced the fire. A groan came from Merriwell's lips. Bart looked into the white face and saw a bloody lump on the side of Merry's head. That face appealed to him as if for protection from the fire.

In spite of his many faults, Bart Hodge held for Frank Merriwell the love of a strong and manly heart. Frank was the one true and faithful friend who had always stood by him—the one friend who always understood him—the one friend who was every ready to defend him. And Hodge would have laid down his life for Merriwell!

He saw that if he dashed through the fire with Merriwell, that face, so strong and manly and true, would be horribly disfigured. He did not think of his own so much as of Merriwell's. Yet he felt that if he got out of the building with his burden he would have to make haste. There were doors along the corridor, and he knew that they opened into rooms. He put Merriwell down, and finding the first door locked, kicked it in with his foot.

The room was full of smoke, but the fire had not yet entered it. Hodge hastily tore from the bed a big double blanket, and retreated with it into the corridor. This blanket he wound round Merriwell's face and shoulders and hands; then lifted Frank again, protecting himself with the folds of the blanket as well as he could as he did so. Thus dragging Merriwell, he stumbled toward the hell of fire that roared in the stairway.

There was a jarring sound, and for a moment it seemed that the whole building was tumbling down round his ears. A section of the rear wall had fallen outward, and the part of the hotel containing the kitchen was a burning wreck. Bart hardly heard the sound, so absorbed was he in the task before him. He did not feel Merriwell's weight—in fact, his strength seemed to be as great as Browning's.

"Frank!" he cried, in his heart—"Frank, my dearest friend, if I can't carry you out, we'll die together!"

The fire in the stairway had greatly increased. But Hodge did not hesitate. Wrapping the blanket closer about Merriwell and himself, he rushed, with seeming recklessness, but with a boldness that was really the highest form of courage, into that raging cauldron of fire, and descended with the steady celerity of one who sees every foot of the way and has no thrill of fear.

The blanket crisped and cracked and smoked into flame as the fiery waves beat against it. Bart seemed to be breathing liquid flame. But the thick bulk of the blanket shielding Merriwell's face and hands kept them from the searing fire.

Half-fainting, but victorious, Bart Hodge reeled out of the hotel, bearing Merriwell in his arms. A great cheer went up from the excited crowd, for, somehow, the information had spread that a daring attempt to rescue a friend was being made by one of the college students.

Merriwell's flock dived through the thick smoke and carried both Hodge and Merriwell to a place of security. And even as they did so the tottering side wall, that had so long been swaying, fell, and the shell of the burning hotel collapsed like a house of cards.