The red eye was now lighting up the far end of the mow so that Harriet was able to see much more clearly. Little piles of hay formed deceiving shadows. She ran first to one, then to another, in this way losing precious seconds.
All at once the girl caught sight of a dark object lying on the hay. She ran toward it. It was the huddled form of an old woman, her eyes wide and staring. Harriet feared she was dead. The fire had already crept perilously near to the woman. The flames at one point had communicated with the roof and were eating their way through it. The girls on the other mow now realized that the barn was on fire. A chorus of wails reached Harriet. But she knew her companions were in good hands, that Miss Elting would get them out safely.
Harriet grasped the old woman under the arms and began dragging her toward the edge of the mow.
“I’ve got her!” she screamed. “Come and help me as soon as you can, Miss Elting. Get the girls down and make them go outside. You will have to hurry. The roof may fall in. Make a rope of the blankets. We shall have to lower her to the ground. She is helpless.”
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” called the calm, confident voice of the guardian. Miss Elting was always to be depended upon in an emergency. She had gotten the other girls safely down before Harriet had called out to her, thinking that Harriet might need her undivided assistance in rescuing the woman from her perilous position.
“Outdoors, girls, every one of you,” she commanded. “Don’t you dare come near the barn! Harriet is rescuing some one from the other mow. I am going to help her. Leave the blankets, but take the packs with you.” She gave the protesting Tommy a push toward the door. Hazel grasped Grace by the arm and hurried her out of the barn. Margery needed no assistance. She was in as great a hurry to leave the barn as Miss Elting was to have her do so.
The guardian climbed the ladder as rapidly as possible, after having knotted the five blankets into a kind of rope. She tested each knot with her full strength; then being satisfied that the rope would stand a heavy strain, she began climbing the ladder holding one end of the blanket rope. At the top of the ladder the heat was suffocating, the smoke blinding. Harriet was coughing and choking. She was on the verge of collapse, having inhaled a great deal of smoke.
“Will—will it reach?” Miss Elting gasped.
“I think so.”
“Ti—ie it under her arms. Go below to catch her if she falls. I’ll let her down,” promised Harriet.