Nan looked around to find the tall, broken-topped tree. A murmur that
had been rising in the distance suddenly grew to a sweeping roar. The
trees bent before the blast. Particles of sawdust stung their faces. The
horses snorted and sprang ahead. Tom had difficulty in quieting them.

Then the tempest swooped upon them in earnest.

Chapter XXVI. BUFFETED BY THE ELEMENTS

Nan knew she had never seen it rain so hard before. The falling water
was like a drop-curtain, swept across the stage of the open tract of
sawdust. In a few minutes they were saturated to the skin. Nan could not
have been any wetter if she had gone in swimming.

"Oh!" she gasped into Tom's ear. "It is the deluge!"

"Never was, but one rain 't didn't clear up yet," he returned, with
difficulty, for his big body was sheltering Nan in part, and he was
facing the blast.

"I know. That's this one," she agreed. "But, it's awful."

"Say! Can you point out that tree that smoked?" asked Tom.

"Goodness! It can't be smoking now," gasped Nan, stifled with rain and
laughter. "This storm would put out Vesuvius."

"Don't know him," retorted her cousin. "But it'd put most anybody out, I
allow. Still, fire isn't so easy to quench. Where's the tree?"

"I can't see it, Tom," declared Nan, with her eyes tightly closed. She
really thought he was too stubborn. Of course, if there had been any
fire in that tree-top, this rain would put it out in about ten seconds.
So Nan believed.

"Look again, Nan," urged her cousin. "This is no funning. If there's
fire in this swamp."

"Goodness, gracious!" snapped Nan. "What a fuss-budget you are to be
sure, Tom. If there was a fire, this rain would smother it. Oh! Did it
ever pelt one so before?"

Fortunately the rain was warm, and she was not much discomforted by
being wet. Tom still clung to the idea that she had started in his slow
mind.

"Fire's no funning, I tell you," he growled. "Sometimes it smoulders
for days and days, and weeks and weeks; then it bursts out like a
hurricane."

"But the rain"

"This sawdust is mighty hard-packed, and feet deep," interrupted Tom.
"The fire might be deep down."

"Why, Tom! How ridiculously you talk!" cried the girl. "Didn't I tell
you I saw the smoke coming out of the top of a tree? Fire couldn't be
deep down in the sawdust and the smoke come out of the tree top."

"Couldn't, heh?" returned Tom. "Dead tree, wasn't it?"

"Oh, yes."

"Hollow, too, of course?"

"I don