A test proved this to be a fact, so Frank insisted that Paul go first, to be followed by Lanky Wallace. Then he himself left the room. His last glimpse of the interior of the upper story of the doomed hotel showed him that hungry tongues of flame were beginning to flash through the open doorway, as though reaching out for victims. Once safely on the ground, the boys moved back, since the heat of the burning structure made it uncomfortable. "Bully bonfire, all right!" declared Lanky. "Wonder if it's bound to tackle any of these other ghosts of shacks and clean off the whole of Gold Fork?" "Let's hope not," Frank told him. "If there's any danger that way, we've got to get busy and hustle our stores out of the cabin where we hid the lot." "You said something that time, Frank," declared Lanky. "After all, I'm not hankering for a diet of grizzly bear steaks, wolf chops, or gopher hash," and he looked at Paul with a sparkle in his eyes. "Lanky," put in Frank, "you do love to stuff any gullible comrade, whenever the opportunity arises." It turned out that fortune favored the boys in some ways. First of all, there was an utter absence of wind, so that the fire did not sweep wildly out toward the other dry and flimsy structures. Then again the recent downpour, called by Jerry a cloudburst, had thoroughly saturated the shacks. Some three of those nearest the former hotel did succumb to the tremendous heat and burst into blaze but the boys saw they could not in turn communicate with the adjoining ones, since a wide space came between, over which the flames could not possibly jump unless a wind arose, something very unlikely to happen. "Reckon that smoke will bring our folks back hot-footed," Lanky suggested, watching the billowing volumes soaring straight upward just before the utter collapse of the once busy hotel. "They'll be all balled up trying to guess what's happened here at the mining camp," added Paul. It came to pass that such was the case. Something like an hour afterwards Mr. Wallace and his two companions were seen coming on a run, and looking more than anxious. "No harm done, Dad!" called out Lanky, to relieve his father's mind. "How did that fire start, son?" asked the other, looking dubiously at Lanky, who, however, shook his head vigorously as he replied: "Not this time, Dad! It happened to be a man going by the name of Zeke--don't know the rest, because we didn't hear it mentioned." "Zeke Spavin, I'd judge," put in Zander Forbes. "Was he a big brutish-looking fellow with a shiny bald top-piece?" "Yes." "Well, he belongs over with the Double Z outfit. Tell us what you've run across since we pulled out." The story was soon told, and the boys found themselves praised for having handled a delicate situation so cleverly. "What do you reckon, Zander," asked the curious and wondering Lanky, "that big gump had hidden down there in the cellar of the old hotel that he wanted burned forever from any prying eyes?"