Tearing off some rags from his coat-sleeve, he wadded them together
into a ball as big as his fist. Around this ball he twisted the metal
strip, so that it formed at once a holder and a handle for the
rag-mass.

With considerable difficulty he worked the glass stopper out of the
alcohol bottle, and with the fluid saturated the rags. Then, on a
clear bit of the floor, he spilled out a small quantity of the
phosphorus and sulphur.

"This beats getting fire by friction all hollow," he cheerfully
remarked. "I've tried that, too, and I guess it's only in books a
white man ever succeeds at it. But this way you see, it's simplicity
itself."

Very moderate friction, with a bit of wood from the wreckage of the
door, sufficed to set the phosphorus ablaze. Stern heaped on a few
tiny lumps of sulphur. Then, coughing as the acrid fumes arose from
the sputter of blue flame, he applied the alcohol-soaked torch.

Instantly a puff of fire shot up, colorless and clear, throwing no
very satisfactory light, yet capable of dispelling the thickest of the
gloom.

The blaze showed Stern's eager face, long-bearded and dusty, as he
bent over this crucial experiment.

The girl, watching closely, felt a strange new thrill of confidence
and solace. Some realization of the engineer's resourcefulness came to
her, and in her heart she had confidence that, though the whole wide