opper was open!

Jerry O'Keefe smiled grimly. His enemies had an ironic sense of humor,
he thought. They meant to give him a choice of deaths, death at the
door by flame and lead or death in the sluice by suffocation. Then an
incredulous exclamation burst from his lips. Was there not a wild and
wholly improbable chance that this opening of an avenue might be
Alexander's work? It seemed unlikely, almost inconceivable, but in
resourcefulness and adroitness of thought nothing was quite
inconceivable of Alexander.

She knew of the rope and its former use--and that meant that the
flowing tide would not have to spell death for him if he waited long
enough and acted wisely enough. Presumably these enemies were not
neighbors, for if they had been they would not be burning their own
grain. If that were granted it might follow that they would not know
of the rope.

Jerry breathed deeply, and a desperate smile came for an instant to his
tight lips.

He was watching the unhurried flow of out-running wheat and gauging, as
was the girl below, the racing progress of the flames. Would there be
time? The door was cut off now by sheets of fire and he had no longer
any alternative. If the hot enemy reached him before the wheat was
out, he must die by it or end matters with his own pistol.

He uncoiled the rope and threw its loose end into the bin, watching
with a fascinated gaze the fashion in which it was dragged inward and
downward.

In the increasing heat of the inferno he had thrown off his coat, and
now his shirt went too. The sweat poured out of his naked chest and
shoulders.

From rafters below him shot wicked tongues of widening flame-- His
breath was labored and his life seemed to wither. There was only a
little grain left now at the bottom of the receptacle but there was
also little strength or endurance left in him. His eyes burned
horribly and he knew that he could no longer support his weight on a
rope by the strength of his arms. He had climbed to the edge of the
bin, and clung there. Then he fainted, and fell inward.

But the moment had arrived when at last the way was clear. The chute,
polished smooth by the flowing kernels, did not even leave a splinter
in his bare flesh, and when he shot down and out he fell on the soft
mound of wheat that had gone before him.

Alexander's straining eyes saw his body flash into sight, and saw that
it seemed lifeless. With a cry that she tried to stifle and c