The problem was, how the children had escaped thus far; and as the sturdy lad stood out on the pond with the long limb grasped in his hand, staring around him, he could not but wonder how it was he had been preserved after driving directly into the forest when it was literally aflame from one end to the other.
But these thoughts were only for the moment; he had left Nellie, not expecting to be out of her sight, much less beyond her hearing, and she had vanished as mysteriously as if the earth had opened and swallowed her up.
And yet he could not believe she was lost. She had proven that she was not the weak girl to do anything rashly, or to sit down and fold her hands and make no attempt to save herself. Something more than the general danger which impended over both must have arisen, during that brief period, to drive her from her post.
"Nellie! Nellie!" he called again, shoving the pole vigorously against the bottom of the pond.
He was sure he heard the faint response this time, and so distinctly that he caught the direction; it was from a point on the shore very nearly opposite where he had left her.
"I hear you," he called back, working the unwieldy float toward the spot; "I'll soon be there."
The distance was not great and it took but a few minutes to approach quite close to the land, where, with a delight which can scarcely be imagined, he saw Nellie standing close to the water's edge, beckoning him to make all haste.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, as he forced the craft close to her.
"No," she answered, with a strange laugh, "but I thought my last moment had come."
"Didn't you hear me call you?"