She could not have disobeyed him had she tried, for the words were in his mouth when the fearful mass of timber descended upon them.

CHAPTER III.

Do you understand what Tim Hunter did?  Had the mass of timber descending upon him and his sister been unchecked, they would not have lived an instant.  Had it been shattered into small fragments by the cyclone, the ingenious precaution which a wonderful presence of mind enabled hint to make, would have been of no avail.

Take a block of seasoned oak, six inches through, and two feet in height, and interpose it squarely against an approaching body and it is almost as powerful in the way of resistance as so much metal.  It would take an ironclad to crush it to pulp, by acting longitudinally or along its line of length.  This block stood upright, and received a portion of the rafters, covered by the shingles and held them aloft as easily as you can hold your hat with your outstretched arm.  From this point of highest support, the debris sloped away until it rested on the floor, but the open space, in which the brother and sister lay, was as safe as was their situation, before the gale loosened the structure.

Tim called to his sister and found that not so much as a hair of her head had been harmed, and it was the same with himself.  All was darkness in their confined quarters, but the wrenched framework gave them plenty of air to breathe.

Who can picture the feelings of the father, when he saw the collapse of the roof of the barn and knew that his two children were beneath?  He rushed thither like a madman, only to be cheered to the highest thankfulness the next moment at hearing their muffled assurances that both were all right.  A brief vigorous application of his axe and the two were helped out into the open air, neither the worse for their dreadful experience.

The parent could hardly believe what had been done by his boy, when Maggie told him, until an examination for himself showed that it was true.  He declared that neither he nor anyone would have thought of the means and applied it with such lightning quickness.  It certainly was an extraordinary exhibition of presence of mind and deserved all the praise given to it.  The Brereton Intelligencer devoted half a column to a description of the exploit and prophesied that that “young man” would be heard from again.  For weeks and months there was nothing at the disposal of Mr. Hunter which was too good for his boy and it is probable that the indulgence of that period had something to do with making Tim dissatisfied with the prospect of spending all his life as a “hewer of stone.”