"WHAT'S that! The Hotel Bastick!"

       "Three sixes!" shouted Tom Garvin as he slid down the pole and took his place in the hose wagon.

       It was 1 o'clock in the morning, and three minutes before the alarm had come in the streets had seemed deserted. But with that facility with which a crowd gathers in New York at any time of day or night people seemed to come like rats from their holes.

       Well-dressed couples, belated over their post-theatre supper, jostled with dusty bakers from the nearby shops. Men whose appearance indicated that they had been partially ready for bed or had leaped from bed in a hurry crowded to see the start of the engine and the hose cart.

       As the heavy engine dashed through the door the last man from the dormitory pulling on his coat in the street, the crowd separated to permit it to pass. The hose wagon followed closely, with Garvin in his place.

       The Hotel Bastick which was very large and very old, stood on Broadway, between Fifty-fifth and Fifty-sixth streets.

       When No. 23 swung into East Fifty-sixth street the sky was lurid. A pall of black smoke was swinging over toward the East River. Crowds were running toward the burning hotel.

       All fires are bad but a hotel fire has elements that absorb the interest, chill the heart and excite the community.

       Engine No. 23 swung across Fifth Avenue into West Fifty-sixth street and to Broadway. It heeled to the west as O'Brien, the daring driver, hurled southward. It stopped with a shock, and the hose wagon was on top of it.

       It was the first at the fire, but the clang of bells north and south, east and west proved that the call had been met promptly by other companies further away.

       Quick as they had been, the fire in the old wooden hotel had gained a fearful headway. Built when that section of the city needed but little in the way of hotel accommodations, it had been added to by the annexation of adjacent buildings till it was a veritable labyrinth of rooms, of hallways on different levels and cul de sacs that led to dead walls, where, with the flames behind to shut off return, the frantic inmates had no chance of escape.

       Above the roar of the fire and the tumult of the crowd that blocked the corners of Fifty-fifth street and Broadway, the terrified cries of the people who thought they were doomed could be heard with heartrending clearness.

       Gorman had come. Gorman was Battalion Chief.

       "Get a ladder to that second balcony! Rip out that hose — be lively! Where's that ladder? Here, Hayes, hurry up that fire! Get a move on with that hose! Bring that hose this way, dammit! Hey! take No. 26 up to Fifty-seventh! Splice your hose there!"

       When Gorman's great voice was hurled through the air it was the giant's call to duty even if to death.

       "Save my baby! Oh, God never mind me! I am a mother! I can die! Save my baby!"

       "Help! The flames are in the hall! We can't get out!"

       "Where's that net? Bring that net this way!" roared he voice of big Gorman, as the cries from the desperate victims came down with the heavy smoke.

       "Catch me!" came a woman's voice and the taut net sagged as she plumped into it.

       "Get that ladder to the second balcony! Run her up to the third. Here Garvin! There is a man with two girls up there! Up!"

       "Tackle!" howled back Garvin as his young body was seen swaying in the glare as he ran like a cat toward the third balcony.

       "Here come the reserves!"

       The crowd that had intruded too far within the danger zone was hurled backward as the bluecoats with their nightsticks flung themselves into the deadly struggle for the lives of the hundreds penned in the burning building.

       Ladders from three trucks were run up against the front of the hotel, and from two in the rear. Seas of water were pouring into the building. Axes were wielded by giant arms of men who defied the very thought of fear.

       Policemen who would face an infuriated mob and charge an armed gang of rioters with clubs carried children to safety with that tenderness that only a stout heart knows how to show.

       The glistening rubber coats of the firemen, the soaking uniforms of the police, the white night dresses of the frenzied guests could all be seen from the crowded streets.

       Scores fought their way to the roof only to find that on either side a space of ten or twenty feet or a fall of forty prevented escape. The stairs were burning behind them. With the terrible fate staring them with hideous closeness in the face many dropped to the tin roof on their knees in prayer. One man, frenzied by terror, choked by the smoke that rolled up in black and stifling masses, drew a revolver and shot himself to avoid the suffering of burning to death.

       "Great God!" came in horrified accents from the crowd.

       Two figures had appeared at the very edge of the roof. One wore the peaked hat and rubber coat of No. 23 and the other the uniform of the police.

       "That you?" bawled the policeman.

       "Hello, Dave! We're in for it, I guess. Never mind. They cant say we died cowards. Hey, down there! Send up a rope!"

       "Extend that ladder!" came the mighty thunder of Gorman. "Splice it. Get a rope up to Garvin. Hurry up, you!"

       The ladder swayed and seemed to be alive, as another length was added, and the end shot upward toward the young fireman and officer.

       "Haverty, get up with that rope. Hurry up! Stay there and help. Get that stream into that corner window. Get a ladder up on the roof of that building and play on the roof of the hotel. Carry a hose to the roof across the street.

       The Chief of the Fire Department had come thundering in his automobile to the scene. He was met by the Inspector of Police.

       "Want anything done?" asked the Inspector. His men were all obeying his orders, but there might be more to do. He was there to do it.

       The Chief swept the terrible scene with an eye that had witnessed others just as bad, and took in every phase of the situation at a glance.

       "Take that stone building over there for a hospital, and have too ambulances called."

       The Inspector sped away, the Chief ran to Big Gorman.

       "Get in there and save what bodies you can," rose in a roll of thunder above the din. The firemen on the ladders, those in the windows holding the nozzles and those chopping away the partitions were getting hoarse. Gorman never got hoarse.

       "Where's Garvin? Did he fall?"

       "Can't see," said his assistant at his side.

       "One of the best men in 23. Can't lose Garvin. Hey, you, Schuyler! Get up that ladder and see Garvin. There's an officer with him."

       Schuyler plunged into the smoke and flame. At the top of the ladder he found Garvin with his face covered with a wet handkerchief, carrying a woman to the edge. Just behind him was the young policeman, his collar torn, his uniform ruined, his helmet smashed in, carrying in powerful arms the unconscious form of a man.

       "The rope!" said Garvin.

       "Better come down, Tom," said Schuyler.

       "Come down? There are people here."

       "Where?" Schuyler was on the roof, and lost in the smoke.

       In a moment he had returned with another unfortunate.

       These men were not alone in their heroic efforts to save life. In every window a fireman stood waiting for the burden that he knew was coming from some comrade in among the flames.

       The smoke was getting thicker, the names were growing gradually less fierce. An ocean of water swept through the furnace and hissed out its life in steam among the blazing woodwork.

       A fearful groom went up from the street. Garvin's ladder had fallen.

       Schuyler had tumbled down a scuttle to the floor below.

       The fireman and the policeman stood looking down upon a ghastly sea of faces.

       "Lenox," said Garvin, "we've been boys together, we were born on the same block, and now we die in the same fire. Good-by, old fellow. It won't be long. When it's over we'll" —–

       "Come on! I've found a way!"

       It was Schuyler — Schuyler, miraculously saved by falling into a mass of bedding and clothing that had been dragged for some reason or other to the middle of a hall; Schuyler, who had groped his way to an avenue of safety and had turned his back to it in order to give his comrades the same chance for life as he had himself.

       "Come on," said Lenox.

       "Go," said Garvin.

       Down burning realm they rushed, the hot air filling their lungs, and Lenox, who was ahead, could just discern the figure of Schuyler ahead. They were passing a room.

       "Wait. I heard a cry!" said Lenox.

       His great shoulder went against the door and burst it open. The room having been closed, had not caught fire, but was filled with smoke. A girl, half frenzied, flung herself into the policeman's arms.

Rushing through flame and smoke, they reached the ground

       She had fainted or died. He did not know which, but in either case she could not be left behind. He now joined Garvin and Schuyler, and the trio fought their way to a rear staircase discovered by Schuyler after his fall, and, rushing through flame and smoke, they reached the ground.

       There were still hoarse cries, there were still shouts of horror from the crowd, but the hotel was cleared of inmates. The fight was now to prevent the spread of the fire.

       Lenox bore his burden through an adjacent building, the doors of which had been broken in to give passage for the hose to the rear, and worked his way through the crowd that swarmed at the corner.

       "That's Lenox," said a voice, and the crowd parted in awe as the man they had seen on the roof just before it fell passed through with his burden.

       A house on Fifty-sixth street was ablaze with light, and the family on the stoop.

       "Here you are, here, Lenox! Bring that woman here!"

       There is no city more cold and impassive in times of quiet than New York. There is no city where there is a more spontaneous outpouring of hospitality and generosity in time of trouble and peril than that same city.

       "It is a young girl, Mr. Hamblin. I fear she is dead."

       The black water dripped from his coat onto velvet carpets as he carried his burden to a bedroom.

       "She is not dead," said Mrs. Hamblin. "Wait. Have a cup of coffee before you go, and send all your men and firemen here. We have made a boiler full, and another is on."

       "And we will take care of her," said a girl. "I know her face. She lives on Fifty-seventh street."

       "And in that hotel queried?" Mr. Hamblin.

       "Never mind," said his wife. "It is no time for questions. She is a girl and is in need of help."

       "Oh, I wasn't — that is" —–

       "There. She opens her eyes."

       "Who — who — saved me?" gasped the girl.

       "Dave Lenox," said Mrs. Hamblin. "The policeman on our beat."

(To Be Continued.)