“While we stood gazing, first at the fire, then at each other, Jake’s face, naturally dark, but now darker than usual, became suddenly lightened as with a new idea, and away he bounded to the other end of the log farthest from the fire.
“‘Claw away the fire! claw away the fire!’ shouted he, springing towards the end of the log, which the brushwood had set on fire and burnt away about a foot. I did not know what he wanted the fire ‘clawed away’ from, but I fell to work, and very naturally clawed it away from the log. ‘Wait’ll I come back with an axe,’ said Jake, bounding off towards the waggons, and leaving me alone beside the log, which was hollow and contained something alive—evidently a man—perhaps poor Pete; but the whole circumstance was wrapt in such a great degree of mystery that I could not attempt to unravel it, especially as the sounds of distress had ceased. Presently, Jake returned with a sharp axe, and, mounting on the log without saying a word to me, he brought the implement down with such force as to send the great chips whizzing in every direction.
“Suddenly there appeared something black; Jake had cut through. He stopped, raked the chips away with his bands, and peered into the hollow; a simple glance seemed, to satisfy his curiosity, and, leaping upon the log some six or eight feet farther back from the fire, he fell to chopping again with as much eagerness as before. In a little while the hollow appeared at that point, and then he commenced to split out the block between the two holes. A few strokes started a crack. A few more, very cautiously dealt, and out tumbled the block, as if a box-lid had been suddenly opened, leaving exposed to our wondering gaze the body of a man.
“‘Pete Tonsley, as I live!’ said Jake. ‘Pete, what in thunder are you doing here?’
“Pete rolled over two or three times, put his hand on his head to call our attention to the fact that his hair was pretty well singed off, and then said—
“‘Nothin’.’
“‘Wal, I think ye wasn’t a doin’ nothin’ only a-hollerin’,’ continued Jake; ‘and if we hadn’t just a-heard ye, ye wouldn’t soon a’ bin doin’ that. But tell us how ye come to be in that thar log?’
“‘Wal,’ said Pete, ‘I sees a ground-hog (hedgehog) a sort o’ slippin’ across this way, soon after I left the track this afternoon, and we had a mortal tight race out to this log here, and then it got here first, and got away. When I sees what the thing went and done, my dander riz, and sez I to myself, Pete Tonsley ’ll show you how to slide into a log next time; and then I kindles a fire up in the holler at this end of the log, a-thinkin’ I might smoke the varmint out at t’other. Wal, I smoked, and I smoked, but nary a ground-hog could I see come out, and then sez I to myself, it might be that the “wood chuck” had slipt out while I was lightin’ the fire, and I had best be going back to the track afore it gets dark. But I didn’t like to be beat by a ground-hog, so I got a long pole and punched into the log at t’other end, but nary nothin’ would come out, though it struck me I could feel it, and once I thought I heard it chatter, as if a sorter a-darin’ me. That made me mortal mad, and, seeing as how the holler was big enough to creep in at yon end furthest from the fire, I lay down, grit my teeth, and slid in, determined to fetch out the varmint, dead or alive. I wound into the log right up to the fire thar, and seed it was all a mistake. I could feel nary a ground-hog in it, and then I began to hitch back feet foremost, but one hitch was all I could make, for just as I was making the second scrouge out, a knot, or a sharp sliver, or somethin’ catched into the seat of my britches, and held me as tight as a wedge. The britches bein’ new, I could not tear loose. I kickt and I cust, and squirmed around in the log for some time, and then I found one of my legs got fast too. It seemed a funny thing at fust to be in this fix, but when the fire begun to blaze in at the end of the log thar, and to creep atords me, I kinder got to feelin’ very oneasy, and when it got right up, and kotched the handkerchief what I tied around my head, I felt mortal skeered. When it came to singin’ of my har, I began to holler, and that’s what brought you out here, I reckon.’
“It was a lucky moment for Pete that we found him, for fire in ten minutes more would have sent him to his long home.”