Part 26 (1/2)

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.

Chapter XXVI. BUFFETED BY THE ELEMENTS

Nan knew she had never seen it rain so hard before. The falling water was like a drop-curtain, swept across the stage of the open tract of sawdust. In a few minutes they were saturated to the skin. Nan could not have been any wetter if she had gone in swimming.

”Oh!” she gasped into Tom's ear. ”It is the deluge!”

”Never was, but one rain 't didn't clear up yet,” he returned, with difficulty, for his big body was sheltering Nan in part, and he was facing the blast.

”I know. That's this one,” she agreed. ”But, it's awful.”

”Say! Can you point out that tree that smoked?” asked Tom.

”Goodness! It can't be smoking now,” gasped Nan, stifled with rain and laughter. ”This storm would put out Vesuvius.”

”Don't know him,” retorted her cousin. ”But it'd put most anybody out, I allow. Still, fire isn't so easy to quench. Where's the tree?”

”I can't see it, Tom,” declared Nan, with her eyes tightly closed. She really thought he was too stubborn. Of course, if there had been any fire in that tree-top, this rain would put it out in about ten seconds.

So Nan believed.

”Look again, Nan,” urged her cousin. ”This is no funning. If there's fire in this swamp.”

”Goodness, gracious!” snapped Nan. ”What a fuss-budget you are to be sure, Tom. If there was a fire, this rain would smother it. Oh! Did it ever pelt one so before?”

Fortunately the rain was warm, and she was not much discomforted by being wet. Tom still clung to the idea that she had started in his slow mind.

”Fire's no funning, I tell you,” he growled. ”Sometimes it smoulders for days and days, and weeks and weeks; then it bursts out like a hurricane.”

”But the rain”