He ran round the house to the back. The bedroom occupied by young Sanderson was on the first floor. The ranger caught up a stick, smashed the window, and tore out the frame by main strength. Presently he was inside, groping through the dense smoke toward the bed.
Flames leaped at him from out of it like darting serpents. His hair, his face, his clothes, caught fire before he had discovered that the bed had been used, but was now empty. The door into the hall was open, and through it were pouring billows of smoke. Evidently Phil must have tried to escape that way and been overpowered.
The young man caught up a towel and wrapped it around his throat and mouth, then plunged forward into the caldron of the passage. The smoke choked him and the intense heat peeled his face and made the endurance of it an agony.
He stumbled over something soft, and discovered with his hands that it was a body. Smothered and choked, half frantic with the heat, he struggled back into the bedroom with his burden.
Somehow he reached the window, stumbled through it, and dragged the inanimate body after him. Then, with Phil in his arms, he reeled forward into the fresh air beyond.
With a cry Phyllis broke from Bess and ran toward him. But before she had reached the rescuer and the rescued, Keller went down in total collapse. He, too, was unconscious when she knelt beside him and began with her hands to crush out the smoldering fire in his clothes.
He opened his eyes and smiled faintly when he saw who it was.
"How's the boy?" he asked.
"He is breathing," cried Bess joyfully, from where she was bending over Sanderson.
"You go attend to him. I'm all right now."