raight upwards into the all-devouring maw.

The black-green fury snatched at the waiting world.

With a roar like that of crashing universes, it swept by the boys and
swung into the farm building. A hay-stack disappeared into the vortex
like a puff of smoke. With a crash of glass, the tornado swept by the
corner of the house, and with one wild last shriek was gone.

Gasping, Ross sat up. Across the fields the cloud swept, the long black
finger still touching the ground and still bringing wreck and
destruction in its wake. Ross gently raised the younger boy, who was
only half-conscious from the din and tumult, for the tornado had passed
within a few yards of them. They had scarcely walked a dozen yards when
the scene of destruction met them full view.

Every window in the house had been shattered and the garden was strewn
with broken glass. The buggy, which had been standing before the door,
was nowhere to be seen, but one wheel impaled in a tree twenty yards
away, told the story. The upright of the sun-dial was gone, snapped off
at the ground as though it had been a reed. The club-house remained
intact. The track of the tornado was not more than forty feet wide, but
where it had passed, the ground was swept clean and bare.

Only one thing remained, and that, by one of the freaks of the tornado,
was the pedestal and the large globe of crystal. It had not even been
fastened down; it had passed through the centre of the tornado and yet
it stood there as unwinking as the sun itself. Stood there all by
itself, sharply gleaming against the black ground--

What was that lying on the farther side of it?

"Go back, Anton, go back!" said Ross, hoarsely.

But Anton had seen it, too.

He shook his head.

Haltingly, step by step, the two boys advanced, Anton's hand on Ross's
shoulder, to the figure lying on the ground beyond the sun-dial,
motionless and oh, so still.

Behind the fast-flying clouds the sun shone out, shone clear and strong
on the crystal, standing on its pedestal, and the gleam, passing
through, fell full on the face of the man.

"Dan'l! Dan'l!" the crippled lad cried, and dropped to the ground beside
him.

He was not hurt. He would never be hurt any more.

Ross looked down at the faithful old darky, who, despite his terror and
in the teeth of certain death, had turned back to try to save the aged
blind woman in the negro quarters. The tornado had dealt kindly with
him. His ragged clothing fluttered