e drop the baby down."

"No--no!" screamed the mother, trying to get away from the grasp of
strong young Joan. "You'll kill it!"

"Give me the child, I'll carry it down the trellis," said Julie, but the
mother would not relax her grip on her baby.

"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.

In the front end of the third story there was not much smoke as yet, so
the three could see their way plainly. And in a small gable-room having
a small window high from the floor moaned an old woman of more than
seventy years. The moment she saw Alec return with two girls to