ird
life overhead, the lazy drone of insects, portended a swift change soon.
Nan was weather-wise enough to know that.

She panted on, stumbling through the loose sawdust, but stumbling
equally in the ruts; for the way was very rough. This road was lonely
enough at best; but it seemed more deserted than ever now.

A red fox, his tail depressed, shot past her, and not many yards away.
It startled Nan, for it seemed as though something dreadful was about to
happen and the fox knew it and was running away from it.

She could not run as fast as the fox; but Nan wished that she could. And
she likewise wished with all her heart that she would meet somebody.

That somebody she hoped would be Tom. Tom was drawing logs from some
point near, she knew. A man down the river had bought some timber and
they had been cut a few weeks before. Tom was drawing them out of the
swamp for the man; and he had mentioned only that morning at breakfast
that he was working within sight of the sawdust tract and the corduroy
road.

Nan felt that she would be safe with big, slow Tom. Even the thought of
thunder and lightning would lose some of its terrors if she could only
get to Tom.

Suddenly she heard a voice shouting, then the rattle of chain harness.
The voice boomed out a stave of an old hymn:

"On Jordan's stormy bank I stand, And cast a wishful eye."

"It's Tom!" gasped Nan, and ran harder.

She was almost across the open space now. The cooler depths of the
forest were just ahead. Beyond, a road crossed the mainly-traveled swamp
track at right angles to it, and this was the path Tom followed.

He was now coming from the river, going deeper into the swamp for
another log. Nan continued to run, calling to him at the top of her
voice.

She came in sight of the young timberman and his outfit. His wagon
rattled so that he could not easily hear his cousin calling to him. He
sat on the tongue of the wagon, and his big, slow-moving horses jogged
along, rattling their chains in a jingle more noisy than harmonious.

The timber cart was a huge, lumbering affair with ordinary cartwheels in
front but a huge pair behind with an extended reach between them; and
to the axle of the rear pair of wheels the timber to be transported
was swung off the ground and fastened with chains. Nan ran after the
rumbling cart and finally Tom saw her.

"My mercy me!" gasped the boy, using one of his mother's favorite
expressions. "What you doing here, Nan?"