David glanced at his dripping face, which seemed strangely white in the gathering dusk.
“Had a hoss struck onct—when I was drivin’ him. That’s as close as I—”
A whirl of flame spurted from the trees on the roadside. A rush of shattering noises tore the false truce of silence to a million shreds, and the top of a giant hemlock fell crashing through the trees below it and lunged across the road. The team plunged backward, and David saved himself from a headlong dive between the rearing animals by the sheer force of his grip on the seat. The roar of the rain, as it pounded on the corduroy of the “swamp-stretch,” drowned Cameron’s voice as he called to the horses. Curious Jim’s fear of lightning was not altogether a selfish one. He treated his horses like human beings in so far as he could, and they shuddered uneasily in the slack harness as they stood in front of the wrecked tree-top, but they did not run, as David feared they would.
Cameron handed the lines to David and went to their heads with a reassuring familiarity of voice and touch that quieted them.
“You go ahead a piece and look if they’s room to get by.”
David dropped to the road and felt his way cautiously over the slippery logs. A white flash lit the dripping leaves around him, disclosing an impassable barrier of twisted limbs through which gleamed the riven top of the hemlock.
“We can’t make it with the team,” he shouted.
“You jest hold the hosses a spell.” David came back to him. “No—go back and take the lines. I’ll have a squint at things.”
The teamster crept forward in the gloom and peered at the obstruction. Presently he came back and reached beneath the wagon. David heard him loosen the chain and brake-shoe attached to the axle. Again Cameron moved toward the fallen tree, the chain clanking behind him. “Now, I’ll onhitch and see if we can snake her to one side. Where in thunder’s that axe?”
He found it and drove out the king-pin. The tongue of the wagon thudded to the road as the horses stepped free.