"Where's that rope, Jo?" now asked Julie.
"Over by the window we went in at," cried Joan, having all she could do to restrain the woman from throwing herself and babe down from the roof.
So in another moment, Julie had the rope tied to a window shutter, and with the other end in hand was over by the woman.
"Here—stand still, will you, while we fix this and let you down to the ground!" commanded she, and the woman instantly obeyed.
Then both girls lowered the two slowly over the edge of the roof, down to where willing hands were raised to catch them. There was a wild acclaim as mother and child were saved, but the two scouts were not aware of it, as they were back inside the room again, taking their precious rope with them. Before they could determine what to do next, a queer form burst into the room.
"Where's the rope you've been using, girls?" demanded the voice of Alec. But he was completely covered by his rubber sleeping-bag, in which he had slit holes for his feet and arms.
Had it been any other time than such a moment, both girls must have doubled over in merriment at his appearance.
"Here it is, Alec. Where did you come from?" cried both scouts in one voice.
"Upstairs. I got up on the roof by climbing the water-spout, and in a dormer-room up there I found an old crippled woman, crying for help, but with no one to hear her until I climbed in from the scuttle-hole. A little old-fashioned stairway runs from the third floor down into the closet in this room. But I can't get her down those narrow stairs, and the other stairway and halls are a mass of fire. I've got to lower her from the roof, but I need help."
"We'll help!" eagerly offered both the girls. So, with the coil of rope, they followed Alec through the smoke-filled room into the large dark closet, and thus, up the scuttle-hole stairs that had been abandoned for many years,—perhaps forgotten entirely, until this need.