"Come round to the end of Warren," yelled Frank. "One of Patterson's bedroom windows is on the end of the building." A score of boys, hearing his words, tore around to the end of the building, but the Wee One's room was dark.
Frank turned his gaze on the ground, and good fortune favored him when he saw a lump of frozen turf which lay by the edge of the walk. He picked it up, and with a throw as accurate as if he were sending a ball over the plate, he sent the lump of earth smashing through Patterson's bedroom window. The signal was effective. In a moment a white-clad figure appeared at the window.
"What's the matter?" it yelled. "What are you throwing rocks through my window for?" The tone was highly indignant.
"The dormitory is afire," yelled the voices below. The white-robed figure left the bedroom window only to return in a moment.
"The study is full of smoke," shouted the Wee One from his lofty position. "Someone get a ladder. I'll have to come down this way." He was hanging over the window sill, and leaning far out so he could make his voice heard. "It's getting mighty hot here; the fire seems to be in the entry outside my door, but I've got my door between the bedroom here and the study shut. Won't some one hurry with a ladder?"
"Hurray, here comes the ladder," the crowd shouted as two fellows came running with the ladder on their shoulders. All hands gave assistance to planting the ladder firmly, and swung it end up toward the window. The Wee One had slipped up the lower sash, and was climbing out on the narrow ledge, making ready to escape.
"It is too short," cried the crowd below in horror. It was true! The top of the ladder did not reach the ledge, where the Wee One maintained with difficulty his slender footing, by at least five feet.
"Lift it up," cried some one, and a dozen eager hands seized the ladder and pushed its end closer to Patterson, who began to kneel down so that he could put his feet on the top round when it reached him; but just as he was feeling for it the ladder, held on its foundation of insecure human muscle, swayed, slipped, and went crashing to the ground where one of its sides snapped like a pipe-stem.
When the spectators saw what had happened, a murmur of horror passed their lips. There seemed nothing now but death for the boy who clung desperately to the window thirty feet above them. There was no other ladder, and apparently no human help. By this time the fire had eaten a hole in the roof, and was shooting merrily through, lighting the whole place up with a bright glare. Evidently, too, it had eaten through the door of Patterson's study, for little puffs of smoke began to appear at the end windows of the study, and a glare filled the room.