But safety that was far away. For the members of the Criminology Club had spread themselves in the lanes between the great masses of box cars, to leap forth as the spies ran aimlessly about in their search for shelter, to seize them, to shackle them. Atop a box car where he had climbed after the first onslaught, Harrison Grant moved swiftly here and there, shouting his orders to the operatives below. In ten places at once, the battle was mounting to the proportions of a life and death struggle--with the members of the Criminology Club in the ascendancy. But at the horsebarns-- Up in the loft, Dixie Mason stirred to consciousness as the flames ate closer. Down below, where the maddened animals were screaming and stamping in their fright, came the sounds of shouts, of curses and yells as the horse wranglers, summoned from every part of the yards, struggled to release the flame-frightened animals. Through a chink in the frame wall of the building, Dixie could see another red glare, starting in the distance--then the forms of thousands of beasts as they sped forth to safety, freed by the men who had rushed to their assistance the minute the alarm had been given by Dixie. Everywhere was the milling rush to save--save--save, while men risked their lives that the lives of horses and cattle might be spared, while men took risks and men braved death--and while Dixie Mason struggled impotently to fight her way through the ring of fire that seemed to have closed all about her. The smoke ate its stinging way into her cringing lungs, choking her, gagging her. She sought to scream--but the screams were lost in the wild conglomeration of noises from below, the shrieks of fear maddened horses, the surging work of rescue. Here, there, back again she struggled, only to face everywhere a wall of fire that inch by inch was eating toward her--a lining, writhing, all consuming circle of death! The flames had eaten their way through portions of the roof now and were spreading the flare of their flames against the sky. Over in the railroad yards, Harrison Grant, receiving the reports of his men as they checked up the list of captured spies, glanced into the distance, started, then whirled to the members of the Criminology Club. "Shackle those men together!" he ordered sharply. "Leave them in charge of Sisson--he can handle them. Then everyone come with me--there's a fire at the stockyards!" Quickly the orders were obeyed. Quickly the men swept forward under the leadership of Harrison Grant to aid the hundreds of horse wranglers and cattlemen in their maddened efforts to release the flame threatened animals. And as they did so, Dixie Mason was making her last desperate effort at escape.