't know."

"Might be hollow clear through its length," Tom explained seriously.
"The butt might be all rotted out. Just a tough shell of a tree standing
there, and 'twould be a fine chimney if the fire was smouldering down at
its old roots."

"Oh, Tom! I never thought of such a thing," gasped Nan.

"And you don't see the tree now?"

"Let me look! Let me look!" cried Nan, conscience-stricken.

In spite of the beating rain and wind she got to her knees, still
clinging to her big cousin, and then stood upon the broad tongue of
the wagon. The horses stood still with their heads down, bearing the
buffeting of the storm with the usual patience of dumb beasts.

A sheer wall of water seemed to separate them from every object out
upon the open land. Behind them the bulk of the forest loomed as another
barrier. Nan had really never believed that rain could fall so hard. It
almost took her breath.

Moreover, what Tom said about the smoking tree began to trouble the
girl. She thought of the fire at Pale Lick, of which she had received
hints from several people. That awful conflagration, in which she
believed two children belonging to her uncle and aunt had lost their
lives, had started in the sawdust.

Suddenly she cried aloud and seized Tom more tightly.

"Cracky! Don't choke a fellow!" he coughed.

"Oh, Tom!"

"Well"

"I think I see it."

"The tree that smoked?" asked her cousin.

"Yes. There!"

For the moment it seemed as though the downpour lightened. Veiled by the
still falling water a straight stick rose high in the air ahead of them.
Tom chirruped to the horses and made them, though unwilling, go forward.

They dragged the heavy cart unevenly. Through the heavy downpour the
trail was hard to follow, and once in a while a rear wheel bumped over
a stump, and Nan was glad to drop down upon the tongue again, and cling
more tightly than ever to her cousin's collar.

"Sure that's it?" queried Tom, craning his neck to look up into the
tall, straight tree.

"I, I'm almost sure," stammered Nan.

"I, don't, see, any, smoke," drawled Tom, with his head still raised.

The rain had almost ceased, an intermission which would not be of long
duration. Nan saw that her cousin's prophecy had been true; the ground
actually smoked after the downpour. The sun-heated sawdust steamed
furiously. They seemed to be crossing a heated cauldron. Clouds of steam
rose all about the timber cart.

"Why, Tommy!" Nan choked. "It do