It was a long, tortuous and in places dangerous journey. While we were not in the track of the tornado, the storm had been severe over a wide territory. Fallen trees lay across our rocky trail and at times we had to make wide detours, forcing our way through thick underbrush and scaling slippery rocks.
"If I did not know that papa is worried I would enjoy every moment of this," she declared, as we paused to rest after a climb of fully five hundred feet out of the valley.
The lightning was again flickering in the west and we pressed on. There were intervals of cleared spaces now and then. We climbed fences, jumped ditches and seemingly walked scores of miles, but still the flickering yellow light of that lantern led us remorselessly on. At last when it appeared as if our quest were interminable we surmounted a rail fence and found ourselves in a road.
"Pine Top half a mile," was the cheering announcement made by Peterson as he held the lantern so that Miss Harding could examine the extent of a rent just made in her gown.
Ten minutes later we stood on the platform of the little red station in Pine Top, and the spasmodic clatter of a telegraph instrument was music in our ears.
Down came the rain, but what cared we! The steel rails which gleamed and glistened in the signal lights led to Woodvale. We entered the room and waited patiently until the operator looked up from the jabbering receiver.
"When is the next train to Woodvale?" was my ungrammatical query.
"I wish I could tell you," he answered, rather sullenly. He had been on duty hours over time. "They've nearly cleared the track between here and Woodvale, but the Lord only knows when a train can get through from Oak Cliff."
"No train from Oak Cliff since the storm?" I asked.
"Well, I should guess not!" he gruffly laughed. "Oak Cliff's wiped off the map."
Miss Harding clutched my arm. There was startled agony in her eyes, her lips trembled but she bore the shock bravely.
"Did you get a message to that effect?" I demanded in a voice which must have surprised him.
"No, the wires are down between here and Oak Cliff, but a man came by here an hour ago who said it went through the village."
"Did it strike the Oak Cliff club house?" I asked.