“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.”
“Yep. And lemme tell ye, I only jest 'scaped being knocked down when she fell.”
“That's how I got inter this muck hole,” growled the old lumberman. “I jumped ter dodge the tree, and landed here.”
“Why don't you wade ashore?” demanded Tom again, preparing in a leisurely manner to cast the old man the end of a line he had coiled on the timber cart.
“Yah!” snarled Toby. “Why don't Miz' Smith keep pigs? Don't ax fool questions, Tommy, but gimme holt on that rope. I'm afraid ter let go the branch, for I'll sink, and if I try ter pull myself up by it, the whole blamed tree'll come down onter me. Ye see how it's toppling?”
It was true that the fallen tree was in a very precarious position. When Toby stirred at all, the small weight he rested on the branch made the head of the tree dip perilously. And if it did fall the old man would be thrust into the quagmire by the weight of the branches which overhung his body.
“Let go of it, Toby!” called Tom, accelerating his motions. “Catch this!”
He flung the coil with skill and Toby seized it. The rocking tree groaned and slipped forward a little. Toby gave a yell that could have been heard much farther than his previous cries.
But Tom sank back on the taut rope and fairly jerked the old man out of the miry hole. Scrambling on hands and knees, Toby reached firmer ground, and then the road itself.
Nan uttered a startled exclamation and cowered behind the cart. The huge tree, groaning and its roots splintering, sagged down and, in an instant, the spot there the old lumberman had been, was completely covered by the interlacing branches of the uprooted tree.
“Close squeal, that,” remarked Tom, helping the old man to his feet.
Toby stared at them both, wiping the mire from his face as he did so. He was certainly a scarecrow figure after his submersion in the mud; gut Nan did not feel like laughing at him. The escape had been too narrow.
“Guess the Almighty sent you just in time, Tom, my boy,” said Toby Vanderwiller. “He must have suthin' more for the old man to do yet, before he cashes in. And little Sissy, too. Har! Henry Sherwood's son and Henry Sherwood's niece. Reckon I owe him a good turn,” he muttered.