She could
scarcely hear what the imperiled Tom shouted to her. Finally she
got it:
"Not that way! Pull sideways!"
He beat his hands impotently upon the crust of sawdust to the
left. Nan tugged that way. Tom pulled, too, heaving his great
body upward, and scratching and scrambling along the sawdust with
fingers spread like claws. His right leg came out of the hole,
and just then the rain descended torrentially again.
The flames from this opening in the roof of the furnace were
beaten down. Tom got to his feet, shaking and panting. He
hobbled painfully when he walked.
But in a moment he seized upon the pole he had dropped and made
for the smoking timber cart. The terrified horses tried again
and again to break away; but the chain harnesses were too strong;
nor did the mired wheel budge.
"Oh, Tom! Oh, Tom!" begged Nan. "Let us make the poor horses
free, and run ourselves."
"And lose my wagon?" returned her cousin, grimly. "Not much!"
The rain, which continued to descend with tropical violence,
almost beat Nan to the ground; but Tom Sherwood worked furiously.
He placed the butt of the lever he had cut under the hub of the
great wheel. There was a sound stump at hand to use as a
fulcrum.
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