a knife. He
struck at Merry's heart, but his wrist was seized and the knife was
twisted from his grasp.

Hodge and Browning crowded into the small room. A struggle followed, in
the midst of which there was a crash and a flare of fire.

The oil lamp had been overturned. Burning oil was flung all over the
room, and the flames leaped up eagerly.

In the midst of this excitement Bantry Hagan managed to get out of the
room. He saw policemen coming up the stairs, and he ran along the hall,
intending to flee up another flight. In the hall he struck against
Merriwell, who had Lazaro pinned to the floor.

Frank was knocked aside and his hold on the villain broken.

At the same moment he heard a cry of distress from Browning.

"Great heavens! Hodge is afire! He'll be burned to death!"

Hodge, Frank's dearest friend, was in frightful peril. That cry caused
Merry to leave Lazaro, thinking there could be no escape for the man.
Browning had torn some of the bedding from the bed, and this he wrapped
about Bart, assisted by Frank. Thus the flames were quickly smothered
and Hodge was saved.

"That's a bad fire in this coop!" cried one of the police. "The old trap
will go."

"Get the people out!" shouted Frank. "Save the people, even though
Lazaro escapes!"

"He'll not get out without being nabbed," declared Sam Bronson.

The whole building was in an uproar now. Men were shouting, women
shrieking, and children crying. They came swarming down the stairs,
falling over one another, pushing, shoving, fighting to get out.

In the room where the fire started, which was now a sea of flames, Frank
saw a figure groping with outstretched arms, clothing all ablaze.

Merriwell rushed in there, dragged the fellow out, beat at the fire with
his bare hands, stripped off his coat, muffled some of the flames and
finally extinguished them, just as he was swept down the stairs in the
midst of a human river. In his powerful arms he carried the one he had
rescued at the peril of his own life.

Out into the open air Merry was thrust. He clung to the moaning chap he
had dragged from the flames.

"Send in an ambulance call!" he cried to a policeman. "This boy has been
badly burned."

The eyes of Felipe Jalisco stared at him in wonderment, for all of the
agony the lad was suffering.

"Why did you do it--you, my enemy?" he marveled. "Why didn't you leave
me there to die? Then I would be out of your way and could give you no
further trouble.