As the panic-stricken cries were rising terrifyingly in the over-crowded theater pandemonium was intensified by the sudden blinking out of all the lights. To be frightened when one can see what danger threatens is one thing. To be frightened in the dark is quite another! Confusion became panic. Voices already raised in protest or entreaty became shrill or hoarse with fear. Mothers called to their children, children cried for their mothers. The shouts of men rose, entreating those in their charge to “sit tight and not get scared”--as though they were not pretty well scared themselves, if they would but admit it! At the sound of the explosion Ruth had gone as calmly as she could from the stage to the little bare room that was all there was “behind the scenes” of the theater. In the darkness she was forced to feel her way. Suddenly a cloud of smoke descended upon her, engulfed her, wrapped her about, almost smothering her. She raised her head instinctively to draw in a breath of fresh air and found there was no fresh air in that stifling place. Really frightened now, gasping and sputtering, she floundered about in the dark, stumbling over things, aware that others were desperately seeking escape. “If Tom would only come!” she cried to herself. “I can’t find the door--there isn’t any door--this awful smoke--oh, if Tom would come!” She thought of her friends back there in the well of the theater--thought of Aunt Alvirah and groaned. She had not the slightest doubt but what Tom was trying to find her. He would get to her if such a thing were possible. But that smoke--impossible to breathe---- Tom was doing his best. Out in the dark well of orchestra seats was a living, surging nightmare. Some had succeeded in making their way to the exits, had escaped from the smoke-filled exterior to the blessed fresh air. But there were those who sought, desperately, friends or members of their families who had become separated from them in the darkness and panic. Ruth’s own party was among these. The boys gripped the girls to prevent their being carried into the aisles by the maddened crowds that swept past them. Chess had found Helen and was urging her to sit quietly. “The only danger is being caught in the mob,” he shouted. “Let these people get out first.” “But Ruth!” Helen gasped. “She may be trapped there behind the stage!” “Tom will take care of her,” Chess prophesied confidently. “Tom--where is Tom?” He felt in the seat beside him where just a few moments before Helen’s brother had been sitting and found, not Tom, but some alien person who growled at him and pushed past in the general rush to the exits. At that moment a feeble form brushed against him, a bony old hand clutched at his arm. “Ruth!” gasped the harsh voice of Uncle Jabez Potter. “Somebody’s got to get ahold o’ that girl!” Chess put an arm about the old man’s shoulders to steady him.