As he turned, dragging the pole with him, up sprang the fire again from the hollow into which the wheel of the wagon had sunk. It was a smoking furnace down there, and soon the felloe and spokes would be injured by the flames and heat. Sparks flew on the wings of the wind from out of the mouth of the hole. Some of them scattered about the horses and they plunged again, squealing.
It seemed to Nan impossible after the recent cloudburst that the fire could find anything to feed upon. But underneath the packed surface of the sawdust, the heat of summer had been drying out the moisture for weeks. And the fire had been smouldering for a long time. Perhaps for yards and yards around, the interior of the sawdust heap was a glowing furnace.
Nan would not run away and Tom did not see her. As he came plunging back to the stalled wagon, suddenly his foot slumped into the yielding sawdust and he fell upon his face. He cried out with surprise or pain. Nan, horrified, saw the flames and smoke shooting out of the hole into which her cousin had stepped. For the moment the girl felt as if her heart had stopped beating.
“Oh, Tom! Oh, Tom!” she shrieked, and sprang toward him.
Tom was struggling to get up. His right leg had gone into the yielding mass up to his hip, and despite his struggles he could not get it out. A long yellow flame shot out of the hole and almost licked his face. It, indeed, scorched his hair on one side of his head.
But Nan did not scream again. She needed her breath, all that she could get, for a more practical purpose. Her cousin waved her back feebly, and tried to tell her to avoid the fire.
Nan rushed in, got behind him, and seized her cousin under the arms. To lift him seemed a giant's task; but nevertheless she tried.
Chapter XXVII. OLD TOBY IN TROUBLE
The squealing and plunging of the horses, the rattling of their chains, the shrieking of the wind, the reverberating cracks of thunder made a deafening chorus in Nan's ears. She could scarcely hear what the imperiled Tom shouted to her. Finally she got it: