The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

CHAPTER XX

THE FALL OF A FOR­EST KING

“Thave me!” moaned the un­hap­py Tom­my, but her voice was lost in the vol­ume of sound that fair­ly over­whelmed the oc­cu­pants of the tent.

Al­most at the in­stant that the first alarm had reached her ears, Har­ri­et Bur­rell rec­og­nized the na­ture of the sound. She had heard it be­fore though in a less­er de­gree. A tree was falling. She re­mem­bered a tall aged pine that stood a short dis­tance to the south of the tent. Be­tween the tree and the tent was a fair­ly open space, that was filled prin­ci­pal­ly with saplings and scrub un­der­growth. Har­ri­et in that mo­ment un­der­stood, she thought, that the heavy down­pour of rain had weak­ened the hold of the aged roots of the tree in the ground. The heavy wind blow­ing against the old pine had been too much for the weak­ened roots. The tree was falling with mighty crash­ings and re­ports that sound­ed like the ex­plo­sions of firearms.

To run, Har­ri­et be­lieved might be at­tend­ed with se­ri­ous con­se­quences to them, for the long limbs of the tree were pen­etrat­ing the tent roof be­fore she had fair­ly got­ten her com­pan­ions un­der­neath the cots. The tent was swept down as Har­ri­et was div­ing un­der the bed. She re­al­ized that if the full force of the trunk fell on the cots noth­ing could save the girls be­neath them. Still, Har­ri­et did not be­lieve the tree could fall so flat as that. Its limbs, she thought, would sup­port its trunk, keep­ing the lat­ter from falling flat on the ground.

Her three com­pan­ions screamed with ter­ror. Har­ri­et was silent. She was lis­ten­ing to the ter­ri­fy­ing sounds, strain­ing ev­ery nerve to the task, ful­ly ex­pect­ing to be blot­ted out of ex­is­tence at any sec­ond. She felt the first re­sult of the falling tent when a flood of wa­ter that had rained down on the tent floor splashed in­to her face and over her body. Ev­ery­thing seemed to cave in. Some of the larg­er limbs of the tree struck the floor of the tent so close to the cots that the girls un­der them were par­alyzed with fear for a few aw­ful sec­onds.

It seemed to them that the crash­ings and crunch­ings nev­er would cease. But they fi­nal­ly did. The girls then re­al­ized that the air was close and that it was in­suf­fer­ably hot where they were.

“Is--is it all over?” gasped Co­ra.

“Yes, I hope so,” an­swered Har­ri­et in a mat­ter of fact voice.

“Wha-​at was it?” ques­tioned Pa­tri­cia in a smoth­ered tone.

“The old pine tree fell. It was for­tu­nate for us that we were in the cen­tre of the tent, for the trunk of the tree is kept from us by the branch­es that are rest­ing in the tent and on the ground at each side. But girls, we must get out of here. Is any one of you hurt?”

The girls replied in the neg­ative. How to get free of the tent was a prob­lem. The can­vas roof was drawn taut over their haven of safe­ty. The air in their strange prison was get­ting very close.

“Oh, let's get out of this aw­ful place,” moaned Co­ra.

“We must wait a lit­tle,” an­swered Har­ri­et. “You lie per­fect­ly still. I will try to get some fresh air in here. Oh, I wish I had a knife,” she added as her grop­ing hands came in con­tact with the can­vas over which she was search­ing for some lit­tle open­ing in­to which she could in­sert a fin­ger and tear the can­vas. A mo­ment lat­er Har­ri­et ut­tered a glad lit­tle ex­cla­ma­tion. She had found the open­ing that she was search­ing for. She ripped the can­vas af­ter great ef­fort, for the cloth was tough. Then to her dis­may she found a great fold of the can­vas on the oth­er side of the open­ing thus made. All her la­bor had been fruit­less.

Har­ri­et raised her voice in a shout for as­sis­tance. The cry was muf­fled and could not pos­si­bly have reached far. Their po­si­tions were grow­ing more and more des­per­ate. Har­ri­et Bur­rell's three com­pan­ions were so firm­ly held by the weight of the cots over them, that they were bare­ly able to move. Har­ri­et be­ing near the edge of the heap had a lit­tle more free­dom. Of this she was tak­ing full ad­van­tage, wrig­gling des­per­ate­ly to en­large the space about her, seek­ing here and there for an open­ing through which she might crawl in or­der to make a way for her com­pan­ions, who were now cry­ing hys­ter­ical­ly. Pa­tri­cia, how­ev­er, was more calm than any of the oth­ers save Har­ri­et her­self.

All at once, the girl be­came con­scious of a con­fused mur­mur of voic­es that seemed to come from some dis­tance away. She shout­ed again and again. At last her calls were an­swered.

“Help is com­ing, girls,” she cried in an en­cour­ag­ing voice. “Keep up your courage.”

“H-​a-​r-​r-​i-​e-​t?” wailed a voice. “Are you there?”

“Yes, Jane.”

Then she heard the voic­es of Hazel and Margery. The lat­ter two were half crazed with fear for Har­ri­et. The next time Jane cried out she was near­er to the im­pris­oned girls.

“Call to me, dar­lin', so that I may know where you are,” she shout­ed.

“We are right in the mid­dle of the heap un­der the tent,” an­swered Har­ri­et. “None of us is hurt. Is any one else hurt?”

“One girl was bad­ly bruised. But oh, this is too bad. I'm com­ing. No, I can't get any clos­er. What shall I do?” wailed Jane.

“Get some­thing to cut away this can­vas as soon as you can get to it. We are smoth­er­ing,” re­turned Har­ri­et.

“Jasper is go­ing to cut the limbs of the tree away,” an­swered Jane.

“No, no, no!” shout­ed Har­ri­et. “He must not do that He will have the trunk down on us and then we shall all be crushed. Have him try to reach us by cut­ting away on­ly the small­er branch­es of the tree, but don't let him cut off any of the larg­er limbs. Tell him to hur­ry for we shall soon smoth­er in here. Watch him, Jane, to see that he doesn't do any­thing to in­crease our dan­ger.”

“I'll watch him, my dar­ling” re­turned Jane. “Oh, what a mess! What a mess!”

Mrs. Liv­ingston had caused the gen­er­al alarm to be sound­ed, guardians be­ing or­dered to have ev­ery avail­able lamp in the camp light­ed and brought to the scene. Jane's, how­ev­er, was the com­mand­ing force. Car­ry­ing a lantern she took the di­rect­ing of the res­cue in­to her own hands, or­der­ing Jasper and the girls much as her fa­ther in oth­er days had bossed gangs of men.

First of all the can­vas of the tent was cut near to where the four girls lay. Then at Jane's sug­ges­tion the small­er branch­es of the tree were care­ful­ly cut away about them to give room for the work of as­sist­ing the four girls from their per­ilous po­si­tion. By this time Jane and Har­ri­et were ex­chang­ing hu­mor­ous lit­tle re­marks, keep­ing up a run­ning fire of com­ment and try­ing to make light of their dan­ger­ous predica­ment. Co­ra and Tom­my were trem­bling so that when they did speak, their words were scarce­ly in­tel­li­gi­ble to the girl who was com­ing to their res­cue. Pa­tri­cia, how­ev­er, was silent.

“That's enough, Jasper,” com­mand­ed Jane at last. “Now hold the lantern.”

All at once there was an omi­nous creak­ing and snap­ping di­rect­ly above where they lay.

“I'm be­ing crushed!” screamed Co­ra.

Har­ri­et had heard the sound. She knew the mean­ing of it, too. Some part of the tree was set­tling over the cots as the re­sult of Jasper's ef­forts to reach the im­pris­oned girls. Har­ri­et Bur­rell's mind worked rapid­ly. She turned as quick­ly as she was able un­til she lay at right an­gles to the cots and whol­ly be­neath them with her head in­ward, her feet to­ward the spot where Jasper and Jane were work­ing fever­ish­ly to reach the girls.

“I don't know that I can do it, but I can try,” mut­tered Har­ri­et. She was bare­ly able to breathe. “Hur­ry!” she called. “We can't stand it much longer.” The girl braced her­self, arched her back and stiff­ened her mus­cles. To her joy, she found her­self able to raise the cots a tri­fle. The weight that had last crushed them down, was not so great but that she could raise it, though when she de­sist­ed from her ef­forts the weight above, held her down firm­ly across the bod­ies of two of her com­pan­ions.

“Here we are dar­lin's,” came the wel­come voice of Crazy Jane close at hand. “Hur­ry, now. This old house may tum­ble in again.”

“Tell me when you are ready. Help Pa­tri­cia out first. I'll lift the cots while you pull her out. All ready?”

“Yes.”

Har­ri­et threw all her strength in­to the task of rais­ing the cots, un­der­neath which she had bur­rowed. Pa­tri­cia was quick­ly dragged out. The cots sagged un­der the weight that bore them down and Har­ri­et Bur­rell sagged un­der the weight of both.

“Co­ra! Be quick!” she gasped.

“I--I can't move.”

Har­ri­et put forth a greater ef­fort of strength. Co­ra Kid­der was dragged out from un­der the cots gasp­ing. Then came Tom­my more dead than alive, ut­ter­ing fright­ened lit­tle moans. Har­ri­et sud­den­ly col­lapsed un­der the weight she had been hold­ing up, her three com­pan­ions in the mean­time be­ing on their way to safe­ty.

Jane heard the crack­ling of the limbs of the tree and the snap of a brace on a cot. Her fran­tic calls to Har­ri­et were unan­swered. Crazy Jane knew that Har­ri­et Bur­rell was in mor­tal dan­ger.

Jasper was still hold­ing the lantern, just out­side the dan­ger line, so that Jane was now work­ing in the dark. Mak­ing her way to the pile of cots she groped help­less­ly about, her hands at length com­ing in con­tact with Har­ri­et's feet. Five sec­onds lat­er Jane was bend­ing all her en­er­gies to the work of rais­ing the cot from the body of her friend. It was use­less--Har­ri­et was pinned down un­der the weight of the tree press­ing up­on the cot.

“Jasper, where are you?” cried Jane.

“I'm hold­ing the lantern out here.”

“Bring it near­er, you wood­en In­di­an!” cried the girl in­dig­nant­ly.

Jasper obeyed with alacrity, hold­ing the lantern as close to where Jane worked as was pos­si­ble.

Jane made one more fran­tic ef­fort to raise the cot, then find­ing it use­less she clam­bered back to where Jasper stood peer­ing anx­ious­ly at the fall­en tent. Glanc­ing hasti­ly about, she in­stant­ly formed her plan for res­cu­ing Har­ri­et.

Seiz­ing one of the side poles of the tent she ran one end of it un­der the cot; then brac­ing her shoul­der against it, used it as a lever in the en­deav­or to pry the weight off her friend. The pole broke in the mid­dle.

Noth­ing daunt­ed, she placed the two bro­ken ends of it to­geth­er un­der the cot, and thus dou­bling their strength, she shout­ed ex­cit­ed­ly to Jasper:

“Take hold, you owl-​faced sleepy-​head!”

Jasper did so, and with dif­fi­cul­ty el­evat­ed the cot a few inch­es above the body of Har­ri­et.

But that was enough! Like a flash Jane bent down and dragged Har­ri­et from her per­ilous po­si­tion and out in­to the open air.

Har­ri­et lay on the wet ground gasp­ing for breath. She was com­plete­ly ex­haust­ed. Her hair was a tan­gled mass, her face was scratched and bloody, her wrap­per was bad­ly torn.

“Get away from here!” com­mand­ed Crazy Jane, turn­ing on Jasper al­most sav­age­ly, and Jasper lost no time in obey­ing her. “Are you much hurt, dar­lin'?” she begged grasp­ing one of Har­ri­et's hands in both her own.

“Oh! Wa--ait till I ge--t my breath,” gasped Har­ri­et.

“Take your time. Oh, I'm so glad. I thought I'd nev­er get you out.”

Har­ri­et roused her­self.

“Is Har­ri­et all right?” cried the anx­ious voice of Hazel Hol­land.

“Yes, she is, but don't you both­er her,” warned Jane. “She's all in.”

“I--I'll be all ri--ight Don't wor­ry,” gasped Har­ri­et.

She strug­gled to a sit­ting pos­ture. Then her head drooped for­ward. Her arms fell limply at her sides, and with a lit­tle moan Har­ri­et top­pled over, un­con­scious.