Larry Barlow's ambition

“Save me!” It was a beautiful girl who uttered the words, as she staggered toward Larry. She was not more than fourteen years of age, with golden hair and eyes of deepest blue.

As Larry gazed at her his heart leaped into his throat, because of her apparent helplessness.

“I will save you—be calm,” he said, as he caught her by the hand. And he went on: “Why didn’t you go below before? Why was the door locked?”

“I do not know why the door was locked,” she answered. “I did not lock it.”

There was no time to say more, for the thick smoke was coming in through the doorway.

“Quick, come with me!” cried Larry, and caught her by the shoulder to lead her into the hallway.

“But the fire—I am afraid!” she faltered.

“I said I would save you,” he answered. “Come.”

Together they passed into the hallway. The smoke was growing thicker, and from the end of the long corridor came the red glare of the approaching flames. Whatever was to be done must be done quickly, and no one realized that more keenly than did our hero.

The pair was still fifty feet from the staircase, when there came a falling of a wall of the hotel L, and of a sudden a shower of sparks swept along the corridor, alighting on the heads of both the girl and Larry.

The girl shrieked with pain and alarm. But Larry brushed the sparks off with his bare hand, first from her and then from himself.

“Oh, we are lost!” she wailed. “I—I cannot get my breath!” and she sank down in a deathlike swoon.

The peril was certainly extreme, for the fire was coming closer each instant. Many a man would have deserted the girl, and thought only to save himself. But Larry Barlow was built of sterner stuff.

“I’ll save her or perish with her,” he thought, as he gazed at the beautiful, marble-like face. He caught her in his arms and staggered on.

The fire was scorching hot, and the sparks were flying in all directions. At last the stairs were gained. He gave one look below and something like a groan forced itself from his lips.

The staircase was a mass of flames. Escape in that direction was cut off completely.

“I must find some other way,” he told himself. But where? The fire was now eating through the lower floors of the hotel in every direction.

He could not remain where he was, and looking around he espied a ladder reaching to the roof of the main building. Should he go up there? It seemed the only chance.

“I’ll try it!” he muttered, between his set teeth. “Heaven help us both!”

With the dead weight of the girl in his arms, Larry mounted the ladder and forced open the scuttle to the roof. Then he crept out.

The roof was flat, of wood covered with tin. The fire was already crawling up to one side, but where Larry stood with his human burden the air was still pure, and he drank in a deep breath, which gave him back some of his strength.

What was he to do next? Letting the girl rest on the roof, he ran first to one edge and then to another, that which overlooked the road running between the building and the river.

A shout went up from below.

“There is Larry Barlow on the roof!”

“Larry how did you get up there? Come down!” shouted some of his friends.

“I have a girl with me!” he shouted back, trying his best to make himself heard above the roaring of the flames. “Can you get a ladder up to me?”

“We will,” was the answer.

The hook and ladder men worked with a will, but when they brought out their longest ladder, they found it too short by twenty feet to reach him.

“Too short!”

“Barlow will be burnt up before they can reach him!”

“Stand the ladder on the piazza roof!” shouted Gus Romer.

This seemed good advice, and the volunteer firemen worked like Trojans to move the heavy ladder around.

But all this took time, and just as they were preparing to hoist the ladder onto the piazza, the wind swept around and the flames shot out of the windows directly across the piazza roof.

“Too late!” groaned Gus Romer. “The roof will be burnt away in five minutes more.”

The veering around of the wind was almost fatal to Larry and the girl he was trying to rescue. It brought the heavy smoke down upon the pair, and the living embers followed.

The girl aroused herself with a start.

“Whe—where are we?” she faltered.

“On the roof.”

“Safe?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh, see the flames are coming this way!” she shrieked.

She was right, the flames were less than fifty feet away, coming up over the rear side of the hotel. The fire was also beneath them, and the roof was so hot it began to scorch the soles of their shoes.

Meanwhile there was a loud shouting down in the road, and looking over the roof’s edge, Larry beheld Romer and the others spreading out a huge net with which the fire department had but lately provided itself.

“Good!” he yelled. “See that you hold it tight!”

“What is it?” queried the girl, trembling so that she could scarcely frame the words.

“They are spreading a net.”

“A net?”

“Yes. Come, we will have to jump.”

“To jump?” She was half dazed by her peril.

“Yes, into the net. Come.”

“But it is such an awful distance!”

“I know it; but it’s our only hope now. The stairs are burnt away, and they cannot reach us with a ladder. Give me your hand.”

She held out her hand and looked at him beseechingly. Then she dropped like a lump of lead at his feet, overcome once more.

Losing no time, he caught her up in his arms. The wind was blowing fiercely, and the great clouds of smoke and flame eddied all around them. With his burden he staggered to the edge of the roof and looked down. Yes, it was a long distance—a good fifty or sixty feet.

“If we miss the net, or it breaks, we’ll be goners!” he muttered. “But it’s the only thing to do.” He leaned down as far as he could: “Are you ready below there?” he yelled.

“Yes,” was the answer which reached him through the roaring and crackling of the flames.

“All right; I’m coming.”

Then, just as the flames seemed fairly to encircle him, Larry caught the unconscious girl to his breast, and made the fearful leap toward the net stretched far below.