a sound stump at hand to use as a fulcrum. Tom threw
himself upon the end of the lever. Nan ran to add her small weight to
the endeavor. The wheel creaked and began to rise slowly.

The sawdust was not clinging, it was not like real mire. There was no
suction to hold the wheel down. Merely the crust had broken in and the
wheel had encountered an impediment of a sound tree root in front of it
so that, when the horses tugged, the tire had come against the root and
dragged back the team.

Out poured the flames and smoke again, the flames hissing as they were
quenched by the falling water. Higher, higher rose the cart wheel. Nan,
who was behind her cousin, saw his neck and ears turn almost purple from
the strain he put in the effort to dislodge the wheel. Up, up it came,
and then-----

"Gid-ap! 'Ap, boys! Yah! Gid-ap!"

The horses strained. The yoke chains rattled. Tom gasped to Nan:

"Take my whip! Quick! Let 'em have it!"

The girl had always thought the drover's whip Tom used a very cruel
implement, and she wished he did not use it. But she knew now that it
was necessary. She leaped for the whip which Tom had thrown down and
showed that she knew its use.

The lash hissed and cracked over the horses' backs. Tom voiced one last,
ringing shout. The cart wheel rose up, the horses leaped forward, and
the big timber cart was out of its plight.

Flames and smoke poured out of the hole again. The rain dashing upon and
into the aperture could not entirely quell the stronger element. But the
wagon was safe, and so, too, were the two cousins.

Tom was rather painfully burned and Nan began to cry about it. "Oh! Oh!
You poor, poor dear!" she sobbed. "It must smart you dreadfully, Tommy."

"Don't worry about me," he answered. "Get aboard. Let's get out of
this."

"Are you going home?"

"Bet you!" declared Tom. "Why, after this rain stops, this whole blamed
place may be in flames. Must warn folks and get out the fire guard."

"But the rain will put out the fire, Tom," said Nan, who could not
understand even now the fierce power of a conflagration of this kind.

"Look there!" yelled Tom, suddenly glancing back over her head as she
sat behind him on the wagon tongue.

With a roar like an exploding boiler, the flames leaped up the heart of
the hollow tree. The bursted crust of the sawdust heap had given free
ingress to the wind, and a draught being started, it sucked the flames
directly up the tall chimney the tree made.