to
any member of the family.

"It's somebody shouting, all right," observed Tom. "Up ahead a way.
Gid-ap!"

He hurried the horses on, and they slopped through the water which, in
places, flowed over the road, while in others it actually lifted the
logs from their foundation and threatened to spoil the roadway entirely.

Again and again they heard the faint cry, a man's voice. Tom stood up
and sent a loud cry across the swamp in answer:

"We're coming! Hold on!

"Don't know what's the matter with him," he remarked, dropping down
beside Nan again, and stirring the horses to a faster pace. "S'pose he's
got into a mud-hold, team and all, maybe."

"Oh, Tom! Maybe he'll be sucked right down into this awful mud."

"Not likely. There aren't many quicksands, or the like, hereabout. Never
heard tell of 'em, if there are. Old Tobe lost a cow once in some
slough."

They came to a small opening in the forest just then. Here a great tree
had been uprooted by the wind and leaned precariously over a quagmire
beside the roadway. Fortunately only some of the lower branches touched
the road line and Tom could get his team around them.

Then the person in trouble came into sight. Nan and her cousin saw him
immediately. He was in the middle of the shaking morass waist deep in
the mire, and clinging to one of the small hanging limbs of the uprooted
tree.

"Hickory splits!" ejaculated Tom, stopping the team. "It's old Tobe
himself! Did you ever see the like!"

Chapter XXVIII. THE GIRL IN THE HOLLOW TREE

Just why old Toby Vanderwiller was clinging to that branch and did not
try to wade ashore, neither Nan nor Tom could understand. But one thing
was plain: the old lumberman thought himself in danger, and every once
in a while he gave out a shout for help. But his voice was growing weak.

"Hey, Tobe!" yelled Tom. "Why don't you wade ashore?"

"There ye be, at last, hey?" snarled the old man, who was evidently just
as angry as he could be. "Thought ye'd never come. Hearn them horses
rattling their chains, must ha' been for an hour."

"That's stretching it some," laughed Tom. "That tree hasn't been toppled
over an hour."

"Huh! Ye can't tell me nothin' 'beout that!" declared Toby. "I was right
here when it happened."

"Goodness!" gasped Nan.

"Yep. And lemme tell ye, I only jest 'scaped being knocked down when she
fell."

"My!" murmured Nan again.

"That's how I got inter this muck hole," growled the old lumberman.