Nan, however, did not mention to Toby the haze rising from the dead
tree. In the first place, when she reached the little farm on the island
in the tamarack swamp, old Toby Vanderwiller was not at home. His wife
greeted the girl warmly, and Corson was glad to see her. When Nan spread
the check before him and told him what it was for, and what he could do
with so much money, the crippled boy was delighted.
It was a secret between them that the grandmother was to have the black
silk dress that she had longed for all her married life; only Nan and
Corson knew that Nan was commissioned to get the check cashed and buy
the dress pattern at the Forks; or send to a catalogue house for it if
she could not find a suitable piece of goods at any of the local stores.
Nan lingered, hoping that Toby would come home. It finally grew so late
that she dared not wait longer. She had been warned by Aunt Kate not to
remain after dusk in the swamp, nor had she any desire to do so.
Moreover there was a black cloud rolling up from the west. That
was enough to make the girl hurry, for when it rained in the swamp,
sometimes the corduroy road was knee deep in water.
The cloud had increased to such proportions when Nan was half way across
the sawdust desert that she began to run. She had forgotten all about
the smoking tree.
Not a breath of air was stirring as yet; but there was the promise of
wind in that cloud. The still leaves on the bushes, the absence of bird
life overhead, the lazy drone of insects, portended a swift change soon.
Nan was weather-wise enough to know that.
She panted on, stumbling through the loose sawdust, but stumbling
equally in the ruts; for the way was very rough. This road was lonely
enough at best; but it seemed more deserted than ever now.
A red fox, his tail depressed, shot past her, and not many yards away.
It startled Nan, for it seemed as though something dreadful was about to
happen and the fox knew it and was running away from it.
She could not run as fast as the fox; but Nan wished that she could. And
she likewise wished with all her heart that she would meet somebody.
That somebody she hoped would be Tom. Tom was drawing logs from some
point near, she knew. A man down the river had bought some timber and
they had been cut a few weeks before. Tom was drawing them out of the
swamp for the man; and he had mentioned only that morning at breakfast
that he was working within sight of the sawdust tract and the corduroy
road.
Nan felt that she would be safe with big, slow Tom. Even the thought of
thunder and lightning would lose some of its terrors if she could only
get to Tom.
Suddenly she heard a voice shouting, then the rattle of chain harness.
The voice boomed out a stave of an old hymn:
“On Jordan's stormy bank I stand, And cast a wishful eye.”
“It's Tom!” gasped Nan, and ran harder.
She was almost across the open space now. The cooler depths of the
forest were just ahead. Beyond, a road crossed the mainly-traveled swamp
track at right angles to it, and this was the path Tom followed.
He was now coming from the river, going deeper into the swamp for
another log. Nan continued to run, calling to him at the top of her
voice.
She came in sight of the young timberman and his outfit. His wagon
rattled so that he could not easily hear his cousin calling to him. He
sat on the tongue of the wagon, and his big, slow-moving horses jogged
along, rattling their chains in a jingle more noisy than harmonious.
The timber cart was a huge, lumbering affair with ordinary cartwheels in
front but a huge pair behind with an extended reach between them; and
to the axle of the rear pair of wheels the timber to be transported
was swung off the ground and fastened with chains. Nan ran after the
rumbling cart and finally Tom saw her.
“My mercy me!” gasped the boy, using one of his mother's favorite
expressions. “What you doing here, Nan?”
“Chasing you, Tom,” laughed the girl. “Is it going to rain?”
“I reckon. You'll get wet if it does.”
“I don't care so much for that,” confessed Nan. “But I am so afraid of
thunder! Oh, there it comes.”
The tempest muttered in the distance. Tom, who had pulled in his horses
and stopped, looked worried. “I wish you weren't here, Nan,” he said.
“How gallant you are, I declare, Tommy Sherwood,” cried Nan, laughing
again, and then shuddering as the growl of the thunder was repeated.
“Swamp's no place for a girl in a storm,” muttered the boy.
“Well, I am here, Tommy; what are you going to do with me?” she asked
him, saucily.
“If you're so scared by thunder you'd better begin by stopping your
ears,” he drawled.
Nan laughed. Slow Tom was not often good at repartee. “I'm going to
stick by you till it's over, Tom,” she said, hopping up behind him on
the wagon-tongue.
“Cracky, Nan! You'll get soaked. It's going to just smoke in a few
minutes,” declared the anxious young fellow.
And that reminded Nan again of the smoking tree.
“Oh, Tom! Do you know I believe there is a tree afire over yonder,” she
cried, pointing.
“A tree afire?”
“Yes. I saw it smoking.”
“My mercy me!” exclaimed Tom again. “What do you mean?”
Nan told him about the mystery. The fact that a column of smoke arose
out of the top of the dead tree seemed to worry Tom. Nan became alarmed.
“Oh, dear, Tom! Do you really think it was afire?”
“I, don't know. If it was afire, it is afire now,” he said. “Show me,
Nan.”
He turned the horses out of the beaten track through the brush and
brambles, to the edge of the open place which had been heaped with
sawdust from the steam-mill.
Just as they broke cover a vivid flash of lightning cleaved the black
cloud that had almost reached the zenith by now, and the deep rumble of
thunder changed to a sharp chatter; then followed a second flash and a
deafening crash.
“Oh, Tom!” gasped Nan, as she clung to him.
“The flash you see'll never hit you, Nan,” drawled Tom, trying to be
comforting. “Remember that.”
“It isn't so much the lightning I fear as it is the thunder,” murmured
Nan, in the intermission. “It just so-o-ounds as though the whole house
was coming down.”
“Ho!” cried Tom. “No house here, Nan.”
“But-----”
The thunder roared again. A light patter on the leaves and ground
announced the first drops of the storm.
“Which tree was it you saw smoking?” asked the young fellow.
Nan looked around to find the tall, broken-topped tree. A murmur that
had been rising in the distance suddenly grew to a sweeping roar. The
trees bent before the blast. Particles of sawdust stung their faces. The
horses snorted and sprang ahead. Tom had difficulty in quieting them.
Then the tempest swooped upon them in earnest.