bing. "Was there anything in the house he valued much?" Suddenly
she drew in her breath sharply.

"Yes, yes," she cried, "his mechanical train. He asked me if I had got
it and I said I had. He must have gone over to the furniture and found
it hadn't been brought down. Oh, Code, Code--"

"What's the matter, Nellie?"

It was Nat Burns's hard voice as he elbowed roughly past Code and bent
solicitously over the girl. He had heard her last words and the
pleading in them, and his brow was dark with question and anger.

"Did you find him, Nat?" queried Nellie in an agony of suspense.

"No, I don't know where the little beggar can be," he replied;
"I've--" The girl screamed and fainted.

"What's the matter here?" shouted Burns. "What's the matter with
her?"

"The boy went back into the house for his toy engine and hasn't come
out again," said Code, facing the other and regarding him with a level
eye.

There was a dramatic pause. After Nat's proprietary interest in Nellie
and her affairs it was distinctly his place to make the next move.
Everybody felt it, and Code, subconsciously realizing this, said
nothing.

It required another moment for the situation to become clear to Burns.
Then, when he realized what alternatives he faced, he gradually grew
pale beneath his deep tan and looked defiantly from one to another of
the group about him.

"Rot!" he cried suddenly. "The boy can't have gone back. It wasn't
five minutes ago I saw him under the cherry-tree. I haven't looked in
this direction. Wait! I'll be back in a minute!" And again he was off
in his frantic search, his voice rising above the roar of the fire.

Code waited no longer.

Snatching up a blanket from the ground, he raced toward the burning
house.

The lower floor was still almost intact, but the upper floor and the
roof were practically consumed. The danger lay not in entering the
house, but in remaining in it, for although the roof had fallen in,
yet the second floor had not burned through and was in momentary
danger of collapse.

The spectators did not know what was in Code Schofield's mind until he
had burst into the danger zone. Then, with the blanket wound about his
arm and shielding his face he plunged toward the open doorway. It was
as though he stood suddenly before the open door of a vast furnace.

The blast of heat seemed an impenetrable force, and he struggled
against it with all his strength.

One more look, a mighty effort, and he was