From rafters below him shot wicked tongues of widening flame-- His breath was labored and his life seemed to wither. There was only a little grain left now at the bottom of the receptacle but there was also little strength or endurance left in him. His eyes burned horribly and he knew that he could no longer support his weight on a rope by the strength of his arms. He had climbed to the edge of the bin, and clung there. Then he fainted, and fell inward. But the moment had arrived when at last the way was clear. The chute, polished smooth by the flowing kernels, did not even leave a splinter in his bare flesh, and when he shot down and out he fell on the soft mound of wheat that had gone before him. Alexander's straining eyes saw his body flash into sight, and saw that it seemed lifeless. With a cry that she tried to stifle and could not, she called upon her last strength, and climbed into the great pen where he lay insensible. The murderers had gone away. Their task seemed complete, and they had no wish to tarry too long after the countryside had been aroused by that beacon of fire. But it was much later that neighborhood searchers found Alexander sitting on a mound of salvaged wheat with the head of an unconscious man in her lap. It was a man stripped to the waist, sweat-covered and smoke blackened. The girl was mumbling incoherent things into his unresponsive ear. "Ye saved ther wheat fer us anyhow--an' ther doctor says he hain't none hurted beyond being scorched up some," declared Warwick McGivins that same night at his own house, and Alexander, limp to collapse with her long vigil of terror, but with eyes that glowed with triumph--and with something else--replied, "I've saved somethin' better then a mighty heap of wheat." Jerry spoke from the bed, where he lay conscious now, but still very weak. "Things looked mighty unsartain--fer a spell." And the girl answered in a silvery voice that held the thrill of invincible courage. "Nothin' hain't never goin' ter be unsartain fer us from now on. Hit teks fire, I reckon, ter weld iron--but----" The enfeebled man tried to raise himself on his elbow, but she gently pressed him back. "Does ye mean hit, Alexander?" he whispered tensely. "Hit hain't jest because I've been hurted a leetle--an' ye're compassionate fer me?" "Jerry," she said and her voice became all at once softly tremulous, "jest es soon as ye're able I wants ye ter tek me in yore arms--an' I don't never want ye ter let me go ergin!" "I'll git thet strong right soon," he declared with a fervor that brought the strength back to his voice--and the sparkle back into his blood-shot eyes.