Her lashes were glued to her cheeks, but she forced them open and turned to see how Jim was faring. He had flattened himself against the poles at their farther end, and just as she looked his way a flash of lightning seemed to split the air between them and the huge old tree which reared its branches just above his head, snapped like a dry twig beneath some giant heel.
115Lou saw the great oak totter and then sway, while a sickening swirl of branches filled the air, and scarcely conscious of her own act she hurled herself upon Jim. With all the strength borne of her terror she pushed him from the heap of poles, sending him rolling out into the middle of the road, to safety. Then she tried to spring after him, but a hideous, waiting lethargy seemed to encompass her, and then with a mighty crash the tree fell athwart the poles.
Half stunned by the unexpected onslaught upon him and the rending blast of the falling tree, Jim lay motionless for an instant, then with a sharp cry sprang to his feet and turned to look for Lou, but the pile of telegraph poles was hidden beneath a broad sweep of branches and across the place where she had crouched the great trunk of the tree lay prone.
“Lou!” The cry burst from his very heart as he sprang forward and began to tear frantically at the stout limbs which barred his way. “Oh, God, she isn’t crushed! Don’t take her now, she’s so little and young, and I want her, I need her so! God!”
116He was unconscious that he was praying aloud, unconscious of the words which issued sobbingly from his lips. He tugged and tore at the branches while the skin ripped like ribbons from his hands and the boughs whipped back to raise great welts upon his face.
He was unconscious, too, of a stir at the other side of the fallen tree and a rustle of sodden leaves, as, very much after the manner of a prairie dog emerging from his hole, Lou crawled out into the rain, and sitting up, sneezed.
At the sound of that meek sternutation Jim whirled about.
“Lou!”
“Jim! Oh, Jim! You’re not killed!” A muddy, bedraggled little figure that once had been pink and white flew straight to him, and two soft arms swept about him and clung convulsively. “I seen it comin’, an’–an’ I tried to shove you out of the way─”
“Thank God, little girl! Thank God you aren’t hurt!” he murmured brokenly. “I thought the tree had fallen on you!”