The first thing of which Tom was fully conscious was of a face very near him. A face drawn and distorted by strain amounting to agony. A face rigidly set in the maintenance of superhuman effort. It was grim, even ghastly in the mingled suffering and resolve that it bespoke. Even as Tom saw it in his dawning consciousness, a kind of despair crept over it and this was swallowed up in a still more overpowering resolve. The mouth was set like the jaws of a vice. Here were physical strength and power of will united to the very utmost. And yet they seemed to fail little by little to be inadequate. Close by Tom saw two bare arms upright and rigid with the veins standing out like ridges. They supported a great fallen trunk which lay almost prone. The eyes of that face were far away and intent as if seeking something far off in the woods. Tom Slade had seen that distant stare before. In the strain of sustained and violent effort the face had the drawn look of age upon it. Gaunt, haggard, troubled and set. It was like a face grown old over night. Tom Slade had seen that aged face before. It was not in the war that he had seen it. Here was the ever baffling miracle of kin resemblance with two score years eliminated by one little minute of sublime effort and suffering. Tom Slade had seen that face before. Yet perhaps it was only his languid, returning consciousness that conjured up a kind of recognition in that rigid, strained countenance. At all events he was too weak to feel intense surprise. “Pop,” he murmured, with the faintest suggestion of a laugh at the incongruity of the thing. “Well I’ll be—Pop Dyk— How the dickens did _you_—” Then he heard the voice and it seemed strained like the face. As if it cost an effort to speak. An expenditure of strength which could ill be spared. [Illustration: “See if you can pull your foot out now,” said Whalen.] “See if you can pull your foot out now—easy. It’s caught in the roots. Don’t worry, I’ll hold the trunk. Right? Crawl out then—I’ve got it.” “_Ned!_” “Yep, crawl out—_quick_!” Tom obeyed. Pulling his foot out from a tangle of upturned root he crawled out from under the huge trunk which had fallen above his body and been stopped in its descent, heaven alone knew how, and held a yard or two above his prostrate form by those straining human props extending upward from a crouching form. The big tree, proud in its towering height, had been struck by the demon of the storm. Where it had stood and where Tom had been passing was now a jagged, cavernous hole where tentacles of root dripping with fresh, black earth lay exposed. The stately tree had been an easy victim of the lightning bolt, which had also touched and stunned Tom. But those arms of flesh and blood and steel had extended taut, straining, but indomitable, bearing the mighty burden which had all but crushed the life out of the trapped and stricken victim. “All right?” said Whalen in his quiet way.