She sniffed the air, then murmured, “I wonder what’s burning.  The smell seems to come from over there.  Perhaps I’d better look around.  It won’t take a second.”

She slowly retraced her steps, looking carefully about her.  There was no smoke to be seen.  She turned to go, then impelled by some mysterious influence, her eye traveled to the door of the small room at the left of the gymnasium.

With a cry of consternation she sped across the floor, flung open the door and staggered back, choked by a perfect volume of smoke that issued from within.  The interior of the room was in flames.

To think was to act.  Unless help arrived speedily their beloved gymnasium would soon be a thing of the past.  Grace tore through the corridor like a wild girl, and darted out the door and across the campus.  There was a fire alarm on the street below the High School, and toward this she directed her steps.

Pausing an instant before the box, she looked about her for something with which to break the glass.  Spying a small boy strolling toward her, a baseball bat in his hand, she pounced upon him, seized the bat before he knew what had happened and smashed the glass with one blow.  Giving the ring inside a vigorous pull, Grace shoved the bat into the hands of the astonished youngster and made for the nearest telephone.

Hurrying into Stillman’s, she discovered to her disgust that the telephone was in use, but a moment later she was at the door and again out on the street.  Her quick ear had caught the clang of the bell on the fire engines, and the thing to do now was to go back to her chums with the news—­and then off to the fire.

“The gymnasium is on fire!” she cried, as she neared the spot where they awaited her.  “Hurry, all of you!  Perhaps we may be of some help.”

Her three friends needed no second invitation and throwing all dignity to the winds, raced down the street in the direction of the burning building.  When they reached the High School smoke was issuing from the windows of the gymnasium, and from the roof and chimneys, and situated as it was like a connecting link between the two buildings, it was an easy matter for the flames to spread in either direction.

Even in the short time it had taken Grace to turn in the alarm, the fire had made tremendous headway, and great tongues of flame shot up toward the sky.  The roof had caught and was burning rapidly, although the firemen played a constant stream upon it.

As the fire grew hotter, the other companies were called out, and soon the entire Oakdale Fire Department was at work.

Ropes had been stretched around the burning part of the building to keep venturesome citizens outside the fire belt.  Grace stood as close as she dared, Nora, Anne and Jessica at her side.

“Oh, do, do save our gymnasium!” she shrieked, as several firemen hurried past her.

“Can’t do it, miss,” replied one of them.  “It’s a goner.  If we save the school we’ll do well, let alone the gymnasium.”