"Where are YOU?" he demanded. 

 "At the window," came the answer.  "We're in the back yard. Mr. Sam wants to speak to you." 

 On Miss Forbes's account, Winthrop gave a gasp of relief. On his own, one of savage satisfaction. 

 "And I want to speak to HIM!" he whispered. 

 The moonlight, which had been faintly shining through the iron bars of the coal chute, was eclipsed by a head and shoulders. The comfortable voice of Sam Forbes greeted him in a playful whisper. 

 "Hullo, Billy! You down there?" 

 "Where the devil did you think I was?" Winthrop answered at white heat. "Let me tell you if I was not down here I'd be punching your head." 

 "That's all right, Billy," Sam answered soothingly.  "But I'll save you just the same. It shall never be said of Sam Forbes he deserted a comrade——" 

 "Stop that! Do you know," Winthrop demanded fiercely, "that your sister is a prisoner upstairs?" 

 "I do," replied the unfeeling brother, "but she won't be long. All the low-comedy parts are out now arranging a rescue." 

 "Who are? Todd and those boys?" demanded Winthrop.  "They mustn't think of it! They'll only make it worse. It is impossible to get your sister out of here with those drunken firemen in the building. You must wait till they've gone home. Do you hear me?" 

 "Pardon ME!" returned Sam stiffly, "but this is MY relief expedition. I have sent two of the boys to hold the bridge, like Horatius, and two to guard the motors, and the others are going to entice the firemen away from the engine house." 

 "Entice them? How?" demanded Winthrop.  "They're drunk, and they won't leave here till morning." 

 Outside the engine house, suspended from a heavy cross-bar, was a steel rail borrowed from a railroad track, and bent into a hoop. When hit with a sledge-hammer it proclaimed to Fairport that the "consuming element" was at large. 

 At the moment Winthrop asked his question, over the village of Fairport and over the bay and marshes, and far out across the Sound, the great steel bar sent forth a shuddering boom of warning. 

 From the room above came a 

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