"And leave you here?" cried Nan. "I guess not, Mr. Tom!" she
murmured.
But he did not hear that. He had seized his axe and was striding
toward the edge of the forest. For a moment Nan feared that Tom
was running away as he advised her to do. But that would not be
like Tom Sherwood!
At the edge of the forest he laid the axe to the root of a
sapling about four inches through at the butt. Three strokes,
and the tree was down. In a minute he had lopped off the
branches for twenty feet, then removed the top with a single
blow.
As he turned, dragging the pole with him, up sprang the fire
again from the hollow into which the wheel of the wagon had sunk.
It was a smoking furnace down there, and soon the felloe and
spokes would be injured by the flames and heat. Sparks flew on
the wings of the wind from out of the mouth of the hole. Some of
them scattered about the horses and they plunged again,
squealing.
It seemed to Nan impossible after the recent cloudburst that the
fire could find anything to feed upon. But underneath the packed
surface of the sawdust, the heat of summer had been drying out
the moisture for weeks. And the fire had been smouldering for a
long time. Perhaps for yards and yards around, the interior of
the sawdust heap was a glowing furnace.
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