les at
their farther end, and just as she looked his way a flash of lightning
seemed to split the air between them and the huge old tree which reared
its branches just above his head, snapped like a dry twig beneath some
giant heel.

Lou saw the great oak totter and then sway, while a sickening swirl of
branches filled the air, and scarcely conscious of her own act she
hurled herself upon Jim. With all the strength borne of her terror she
pushed him from the heap of poles, sending him rolling out into the
middle of the road, to safety. Then she tried to spring after him, but a
hideous, waiting lethargy seemed to encompass her, and then with a
mighty crash the tree fell athwart the poles.

Half stunned by the unexpected onslaught upon him and the rending blast
of the falling tree, Jim lay motionless for an instant, then with a
sharp cry sprang to his feet and turned to look for Lou, but the pile of
telegraph poles was hidden beneath a broad sweep of branches and across
the place where she had crouched the great trunk of the tree lay prone.

"Lou!" The cry burst from his very heart as he sprang forward and began
to tear frantically at the stout limbs which barred his way. "Oh, God,
she isn't crushed! Don't take her now, she's so little and young, and I
want her, I need her so! God!"

He was unconscious that he was praying aloud, unconscious of the words
which issued sobbingly from his lips. He tugged and tore at the branches
while the skin ripped like ribbons from his hands and the boughs whipped
back to raise great welts upon his face.

He was unconscious, too, of a stir at the other side of the fallen tree
and a rustle of sodden leaves, as, very much after the manner of a
prairie dog emerging from his hole, Lou crawled out into the rain, and
sitting up, sneezed.

At the sound of that meek sternutation Jim whirled about.

"Lou!"

"Jim! Oh, Jim! You're not killed!" A muddy, bedraggled little figure
that once had been pink and white flew straight to him, and two soft
arms swept about him and clung convulsively. "I seen it comin', an'--an'
I tried to shove you out of the way----"

"Thank God, little girl! Thank God you aren't hurt!" he murmured
brokenly. "I thought the tree had fallen on you!"

"Only the boughs of it, but they held me down. Oh, Jim, if you'd been
killed I wouldn't 'a' cared what happened to me!"

His heart leaped, and his own arms tightened about her at the naive,
unconscious revelation which