"I'm afraid of him and I
hid in the bushes till he had gone by."
"Huh!" sighed Toby, as though relieved. "Jest as well. Though
Ged wouldn't ha' dared touch ye, Sissy."
"Never mind. I'm here now," said Nan, brightly. "And I want you
to show me your house and introduce me to Mrs. Vanderwiller."
"Sure. My ol' woman will be glad to see ye," said the man,
briskly. "'Tain't more'n a mile furder on."
But first they came to a deserted place, a strip more than half
a mile wide, where the trees had been cut in a broad belt
through the swamp. All Nan could see was sawdust and the stumps
of felled trees sticking out of it. The sawdust, Toby said, was
anywhere from two to twenty feet deep, and there were acres of
it.
"They had their mill here, ye kin see the brick work yonder.
They hauled out the lumber by teams past my place. The stea'mill
was here more'n two years. They hauled the sawdust out of the
way and dumped it in ev'ry holler, jest as it come handy."
"What a lot there is of it!" murmured Nan, sniffing doubtfully at
the rather unpleasant odor of the sawdust.
"I wish't 'twas somewhere else," grunted Toby.
"Why-so?"
"Fire git in it and it'd burn till doomsday. Fire in sawdust is
a mighty bad thing.
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