and tore away
brick and stone and steel, but it was only a few minutes before they
pried up a section of the heavy roof and lifted Nickols from the debris
beneath.

"He's breathing," said Mr. Todd, as he laid him in the parson's great,
strong, outstretched arms open to receive him and which bore him out
through the crowd swiftly and laid him across the seats of Nickols' car.
Doctor Harding had just put Mark, a limp, heavy body, into his own car,
with Harriet to support the bleeding head, and Nell crouched beside him
with the Suckling in her arms, and sent them on up into the devastated
Town. Now he came and helped us settle Nickols on his cushions.

"Shall I send my car and Colonel Leftwick for surgeons and nurses from
the Capital?" asked the Governor. "How is it with Morgan?"

"He is dead," answered the old doctor with the calm serenity that he had
acquired after so many years of giving up his friends. "This case is
another matter. There may be a chance and I'll need help. We don't yet
know how many more are injured in the whole town. We'll need help."

"Then I'll drive for it myself," answered the Governor, as he swung into
his powerful car and started it out into the valley. "I'll make it back
in six hours. No other man can drive this car as fast as I can."

And true to his promise, he was back within the time with nurses and
surgeons and supplies of all kinds. By that time the whole Harpeth
Valley had heard of our tragedy and all who could find a way were
hurrying to our rescue or comforting.

The dawn of the beautiful new day found Nickols still alive, stretched
on his bed in his own wing of the Poplars, which alone of all the homes
in the Town had not been touched by the storm monster. The old house
stood unharmed in all its beauty in its garden which had hardly a leaf
or a branch broken, and hovered under its roof the last of the name of
its builders. He lay quiet and unconscious while his life jetted itself
away from a great hole in his lung made by a splinter from the beam he
had held up until old Goodloet's children had been given back to its
future. The great surgeon who had come down with the Governor, watched,
shook his head and went at his task again and again with a dogged
courage. For an hour he would leave him to go and help Dr. Harding with
some of the other injured, but back he would come to his fight for
Nickols' life.

And all over the stricken town there were similar tragedies being
enacted