Just why old Toby Vanderwiller was clinging to that branch and did not
try to wade ashore, neither Nan nor Tom could understand. But one thing
was plain: the old lumberman thought himself in danger, and every once
in a while he gave out a shout for help. But his voice was growing weak.
“Hey, Tobe!” yelled Tom. “Why don't you wade ashore?”
“There ye be, at last, hey?” snarled the old man, who was evidently just
as angry as he could be. “Thought ye'd never come. Hearn them horses
rattling their chains, must ha' been for an hour.”
“That's stretching it some,” laughed Tom. “That tree hasn't been toppled
over an hour.”
“Huh! Ye can't tell me nothin' 'beout that!” declared Toby. “I was right
here when it happened.”
“Goodness!” gasped Nan.
“Yep. And lemme tell ye, I only jest 'scaped being knocked down when she
fell.”
“My!” murmured Nan again.
“That's how I got inter this muck hole,” growled the old lumberman. “I
jumped ter dodge the tree, and landed here.”
“Why don't you wade ashore?” demanded Tom again, preparing in a
leisurely manner to cast the old man the end of a line he had coiled on
the timber cart.
“Yah!” snarled Toby. “Why don't Miz' Smith keep pigs? Don't ax fool
questions, Tommy, but gimme holt on that rope. I'm afraid ter let go the
branch, for I'll sink, and if I try ter pull myself up by it, the whole
blamed tree'll come down onter me. Ye see how it's toppling?”
It was true that the fallen tree was in a very precarious position. When
Toby stirred at all, the small weight he rested on the branch made the
head of the tree dip perilously. And if it did fall the old man would
be thrust into the quagmire by the weight of the branches which overhung
his body.
“Let go of it, Toby!” called Tom, accelerating his motions. “Catch
this!”
He flung the coil with skill and Toby seized it. The rocking tree
groaned and slipped forward a little. Toby gave a yell that could have
been heard much farther than his previous cries.
But Tom sank back on the taut rope and fairly jerked the old man out
of the miry hole. Scrambling on hands and knees, Toby reached firmer
ground, and then the road itself.
Nan uttered a startled exclamation and cowered behind the cart. The
huge tree, groaning and its roots splintering, sagged down and, in
an instant, the spot there the old lumberman had been, was completely
covered by the interlacing branches of the uprooted tree.
“Close squeal, that,” remarked Tom, helping the old man to his feet.
Toby stared at them both, wiping the mire from his face as he did so.
He was certainly a scarecrow figure after his submersion in the mud; gut
Nan did not feel like laughing at him. The escape had been too narrow.
“Guess the Almighty sent you just in time, Tom, my boy,” said Toby
Vanderwiller. “He must have suthin' more for the old man to do yet,
before he cashes in. And little Sissy, too. Har! Henry Sherwood's son
and Henry Sherwood's niece. Reckon I owe him a good turn,” he muttered.
Nan heard this, though Tom did not, and her heart leaped. She hoped that
Toby would feel sufficient gratitude to help Uncle Henry win his case
against Gedney Raffer. But, of course, this was not the time to speak of
it.
When the old lumberman heard about the fire in the sawdust he was quite
as excited as the young folk had been. It was fast growing dark now, but
it was impossible from the narrow road to see even the glow of the fire
against the clouded sky.
“I believe it's goin' to open up and rain ag'in,” Toby said. “But if you
want to go on and plow me a fire-strip, Tommy, I'll be a thousand times
obleeged to you.”
“That's what I came this way for,” said the young fellow briefly. “Hop
on and we'll go to the island as quickly as possible.”
They found Mrs. Vanderwiller and the crippled boy anxiously watching the
flames in the tree top from the porch of the little house on the island.
Nan ran to them to relate their adventures, while Toby got out the plow
and Tom hitched his big horses to it.
The farm was not fenced, for the road and forest bounded it completely.
Tom put the plow in at the edge of the wood and turned his furrows
toward it, urging the horses into a trot. It was not that the fire was
near; but the hour was growing late and Tom knew that his mother and
father would be vastly anxious about Nan.
The young fellow made twelve laps, turning twelve broad furrows that
surely would guard the farm against any ordinary fire. But by the time
he was done it did not look as though the fire in the sawdust would
spread far. The clouds were closing up once more and it was again
raining, gently but with an insistence that promised a night of
downpour, at least.
Old Mrs. Vanderwiller had made supper, and insisted upon their eating
before starting for Pine Camp. And Tom, at least, did his share with
knife and fork, while his horses ate their measure of corn in the
paddock. It was dark as pitch when they started for home, but Tom was
cheerful and sure of his way, so Nan was ashamed to admit that she was
frightened.
“Tell yer dad I'll be over ter Pine Camp ter see him 'fore many days,”
Old Toby jerked out, as they were starting. “I got suthin' to say to
him, I have!”
Tom did not pay much attention to this; but Nan did. Her heart leaped
for joy. She believed that Toby Vanderwiller's words promised help for
Uncle Henry.
But she said nothing to Tom about it. She only clung to his shoulder as
the heavy timber cart rattled away from the island.
A misty glow hung over the sawdust strip as they advanced; but now that
the wind had died down the fire could not spread. Beside the road the
glow worms did their feeble best to light the way; and now and then an
old stump in the swamp displayed a ghostly gleam of phosphorus.
Nan had never been in the swamp before at night. The rain had driven
most of the frogs and other croaking creatures to cover. But now and
then a sudden rumble “Better-go-roun'!” or “Knee-deep! Knee-deep!”
proclaimed the presence of the green-jacketed gentlemen with the yellow
vests.
“Goodness me! I'd be scared to death to travel this road by myself,” Nan
said, as they rode on. “The frogs make such awful noises.”
“But frogs won't hurt you,” drawled Tom.
“I know all that,” sighed Nan. “But they sound as if they would. There!
That one says, just as plain as plain can be, 'Throw 'im in! Throw 'im
in!”
“Good!” chuckled Tom. “And there's a drunken old rascal calling:
'Jug-er-rum! Jug-er-rum!'!”
A nighthawk, wheeling overhead through the rain, sent down her
discordant cry. Deep in a thicket a whip-poor-will complained. It was
indeed a ghostly chorus that attended their slow progress through the
swamp at Pine Camp.
When they crossed the sawdust tract there was little sign of the fire.
The dead tree had fallen and was just a glowing pile of coals, fast
being quenched by the gently falling rain. For the time, at least, the
danger of a great conflagration was past.
“Oh! I am so glad,” announced Nan, impetuously. “I was afraid it was
going to be like that Pale Lick fire.”
“What Pale Lick fire?” demanded Tom, quickly. “What do you know about
that?”
“Not much, I guess,” admitted his cousin, slowly. “But you used to live
there, didn't you?”
“Rafe and I don't remember anything about it,” said Tom, in his quiet
way. “Rafe was a baby and I wasn't much better. Marm saved us both, so
we've been told. She and dad never speak about it.”
“Oh! And Indian Pete?” whispered Nan.
“He saved the whole of us--dad and all. He knew a way out through a
slough and across a lake. He had a dug-out. He got badly burned dragging
dad to the boat when he was almost suffocated with smoke,” Tom said
soberly.
“'Tisn't anything we talk about much, Nan. Who told you?”
“Oh, it's been hinted to me by various people,” said Nan, slowly. “But I
saw Injun Pete, Tom.”
“When? He hasn't been to Pine Camp since you came.”
Nan told her cousin of her adventure in the hollow near Blackton's
lumber camp. Tom was much excited by that.
“Gracious me, Nan! But you are a plucky girl. Wait till Rafe hears about
it. And marm and dad will praise you for being so level-headed today.
Aren't many girls like you, Nan, I bet!”
“Nor boys like you, Tom,” returned the girl, shyly. “How brave you were,
staying to pull that old wagon-wheel out of the fire.”
“Ugh!” growled Tom. “A fat time I'd have had there if it hadn't been for
you helping me out of the oven. Cracky! I thought I was going to have my
leg burned to a cinder.
“That would have been terrible!” shuddered Nan. “What would poor Aunt
Kate have said?”
“We can't tell her anything about it,” Tom hastened to say. “You see, my
two older brothers, Jimmy and Alfred, were asleep in the garret of our
house at Pale Lick, and marm thought they'd got out. It wasn't until
afterward that she learned they'd been burned up with the house. She's
never got over it.”
“I shouldn't think she would,” sighed Nan.
“And you see she's awfully afraid of fire, even now,” said Tom.
They rattled on over the logs of the road; here and there they came to
bad places, where the water had not gone down; and the horses were very
careful in putting their hoofs down upon the shaking logs. However, it
was not much over an hour after leaving the island that they spied the
lights of Pine Camp from the top of the easy rise leading out of the
tamarack swamp.
They met Rafe with a lantern half way down the hill. Uncle Henry was
away and Aunt Kate had sent Rafe out to look for Nan, although she
supposed that the girl had remained at the Vanderwillers' until the rain
was over, and that Toby would bring her home.
There was but one other incident of note before the three of them
reached the rambling house Uncle Henry had built on the outskirts of
Pine Camp. As they turned off the swamp road through the lane that ran
past the Llewellen cottage, Rafe suddenly threw the ray of his lantern
into a hollow tree beside the roadway. A small figure was there, and it
darted back out of sight.
“There!” shouted Rafe. “I knew you were there, you little nuisance. What
did you run out of the house and follow me for, Mar'gret Llewellen?”
He jumped in and seized the child, dragging her forth from the hollow of
the big tree. He held her, while she squirmed and screamed.
“You lemme alone, Rafe Sherwood! Lemme alone!” she commanded. “I ain't
doin' nothin' to you.”
“Well, I bet you are up to some monkey-shines, out this time of night,”
said Rafe, giving her a little shake. “You come on back home, Mag.”
“I won't!” declared the girl.
“Yes, do, Margaret,” begged Nan. “It's going to rain harder. Don't hurt
her, Rafe.”
“Yah! You couldn't hurt her,” said Rafe. “She's as tough as a little
pine-knot, and don't you forget it! Aren't you, Mag?”
“Lemme go!” repeated Margaret, angrily.
“What did you chase down here after me for?” asked Rafe, the curious.
“I, I thought mebbe you was comin' to hunt for something,” stammered the
girl.
“So I was. For Nancy here,” laughed Rafe.
“Thought 'twas somethin' of mine,” said the girl. “Lemme go now!”
She jerked away her hand and scuttled into the house that they were then
just passing.
“Wonder what the little imp came out to watch me for?” queried Rafe.
After they had arrived at home and the excitement o the return was over;
after she and Tom had told as much of their adventures as they thought
wise, and Nan had retired to the east chamber, she thought again about
Margaret and her queer actions by the roadside.
“Why, that tree is where Margaret hides her most precious possessions,”
said Nan, suddenly, sitting up in bed. “Why, what could it be she was
afraid Rafe would find there? Why can that child have hidden something
there that she doesn't want any of us to see?”
Late as it was, and dark as it was, and stormy as the night was, she
felt that she must know immediately what Margaret Llewellen had hidden
in the hollow tree.