I wish"
She stopped, for in following the flight of the cardinal her gaze
fastened upon a most surprising thing off at some distance from
the sawdust road. A single dead tree, some forty feet in height
and almost limbless, stood in solemn grandeur in the midst of the
sawdust waste. It had been of no use to the woodcutters and they
had allowed the shell of the old forest monarch to stand. Now,
from its broken top, Nan espied a thin, faint column of blue haze
rising.
It was the queerest thing! It was not mist, of course and she
did not see how it could be smoke. There was no fire at the foot
of the tree, for she could see the base of the bole plainly. She
even got up and ran a little way out into the open in order to
see the other side of the dead tree.
The sky was very blue, and the air was perfectly still. Almost
Nan was tempted to believe that her eyes played her false. The
column was almost the color of the sky itself, and it was thin as
a veil.
How could there be a fire in the top of that tall tree?
"There just isn't! I don't believe I see straight!" declared Nan
to herself, moving on along the roadway. "But I'll speak to Toby
about it."
Chapter XXV
THE TEMPEST
Nan, however, did not mention to Toby the haze rising from the
dead tree.
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