and one by one the young men followed. The young man who was fire sergeant
counted his men and found them all present but one cadet. He darted back
to find him, and that moment with a last roar of triumph the flames gave a
final leap and the building collapsed, burying in a fiery grave two fine
young heroes. Afterward they said the building had been "smeared" or it
never could have gone in a breath as it did. The miracle was that no more
lives were lost.

So that was how the burning of the Salvation Army Training School
occurred.

The significant fact in the affair was that there had been sleeping in
that building directly over the place where the fire started several of
the lassies who were to sail for France in a day or two with the largest
party of war workers that had yet been sent out. Their trunks were packed,
and they were all ready to go. The object was all too evident.

There was also proof that the intention had been to destroy as well the
great fireproof Salvation Army National Headquarters building adjoining
the Training School.

A few days later a detective taking lunch in a small German restaurant on
a side street overheard a conversation:

"Well, if we can't burn them out we'll blow up the building, and get that
damn Commander, anyhow!"

Yet when this was told her the Commander declined the bodyguard offered
her by the Civic Authorities, to go with her even to her country home and
protect her while the war lasted! She is naturally a soldier.