shore.

The alarm was now general, and fully two score of students and several of the faculty, as well as some workmen, were running for the boathouse, to get out the rowboats and other craft usually housed there.

“Stanley, how about your gasolene launch?” questioned Dick, as they raced along the river bank.

“She’s all ready to use,” was the answer. “I had her out a little while early this morning.”

“Then I’ll go out with you in that, if you say so.”

“Sure,” was the ready response.

“Want us?” queried Tom.

“You and Sam better bring another boat,” answered Dick. “The more the better. The Thistle must have quite a crowd on board—if all the Hope students went on that picnic.”

“Grace said about thirty girls were going,” replied Sam. “Oh, if they get burned——”

“They won’t wait for that—they’ll jump into the river first,” answered Tom soberly. For the time being all the fun was knocked out of him.

While talking, the boys had been busy with the boats. Stanley’s gasolene launch was pushed out, and he and Dick leaped aboard, and the latter set the flywheel going. The engine was in good running order, and soon a steady put-put! sounded out, and the craft headed for the burning steamer. But, as quick as Dick and Stanley were in their movements, Tom and Sam were equally alert, and as the launch moved away Tom and his brother scrambled into a rowboat, oars in hand, and caught fast to the power craft with a boathook.

“You can pull us as well as not,” said Tom.

“Right you are,” answered Stanley. “And the quicker both boats get to that steamer the better.”

As they drew closer to the Thistle they saw a volume of smoke roll up from the engine room. A barrel of oil had taken fire and the crew had found it impossible to subdue the conflagration. As yet the fire was only a small one, but there was no telling how soon it would spread, and the seminary girls on board were panic-stricken, more especially as the teacher who chanced to be with them was herself an extremely nervous person.

“Oh, girls, what shall we do?” asked Grace Laning, after the first dreadful alarm was at an end.

“Perhaps we had better jump overboard,” suggested Nellie Laning. “I don’t want to be burned alive!” And her wide-open eyes showed her terror.

“Don’t jump yet,” said Dora Stanhope, as bravely as she could.

“Oh, girls, we’ll be burned to death! I know it, I feel it!” wailed another seminary student.

“We are near Brill College,” said another. “Let us cry for help!” And then commenced the screaming that reached the players on the ball field and others near the water’s edge.

In the meantime, the captain of the steamer, aided by his men, was doing all in his power to subdue the flames. But oil when on fire is a hard thing to fight. The blaze was close to the engine room, and presently both the engineer and the firemen were driven from their posts. Then the steamer became unmanageable and drifted on the mud shoal, as already mentioned.

“We’ll have to get out the small boats,” cried the captain. But even as he spoke he knew that the small boats were of no avail, for they had not been used since the Thistle had been put into commission, three years before, and they were dried out, and would fill with water as soon as unshipped. Life preservers were to be had, and a few of the girls were thoughtful enough to supply themselves with these.

“Crowd her, Stanley!” cried Dick, as the launch headed straight for the burning steamer.

“I’ll give her all she will stand,” responded the owner of the launch, and he turned the lever down another notch. The revolutions of the flywheel increased, and the water was churned up