THE FACE IN THE STORM

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.

“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.

“My foot must have been caught in one of the roots,” said Tom breathing relief. “I guess I got struck too. It was a grand mix-up. You saved me. If that had fallen on me—”

“Well it didn’t,” said Whalen.

Tom climbed over the prone tree to where his friend waited. The storm was abating, the rain returning to its sullen habit. The pervasive gloom of the steady drizzle and the sodden sky was returning.

Whalen was drenched, his clothing torn, and he was breathing heavily. Despite his abounding gratitude which transcended every other thought, Tom was impelled to give a sudden, quizzical, puzzled look at his rescuer. Not that he expected to find any hint of the resemblance he had seen before.

He wanted to make sure of himself, to reassure himself that he had not been fully conscious before. He believed that he had been “seeing things” and he wished to check up this conviction. Surely a resemblance, however striking, noticed amid such conditions, was not worth thinking twice about.

Yet there was something in Whalen’s face which for the moment startled Tom. Perhaps he only fancied a resemblance now. But it was not this which startled him. It was a certain troubled look in his friend’s face, a look as of fear and apprehension. Whalen always had a weary look and it was his weary manner of utterance which made him what Audry Ferris called sarcastic. He had that look now and it was pitiable, for added to it was a troubled look. A suggestion of anxiety.

“Who did you think I was?” he asked.

Tom, like the good scout he was, answered cautiously and cheerily, “I guess I don’t know what I thought or what I said. I know you saved my life, that’s sure.”

Whalen seemed about to ask another question but refrained, apparently relieved and satisfied. And so they started for the hotel.

“I’ve seen stunts,” said Tom, “but I never saw anything like that. You saved my life. And you’re a wonder. Were you holding the whole business up or was I dreaming?”

“You think you were dreaming?” Whalen asked.

“I was nutty for a couple of minutes, that’s sure.”

“I saw the tree struck,” said Whalen quietly, “and I saw it go over. The earth must have caved under you. The next thing I saw the tree was caught in the branches of another tree—it was almost down and slipping down every second. You must have been knocked silly. I got there before the tree fell the rest of the way. So here we are. Guess it must be nearly supper-time. Your foot hurt?”

“Ned,” said Tom, stopping in the path and looking straight at his friend. “I always called you Whalen—”

“Yes?” said his companion with a kind of weary curiosity. “Spring it. What is it?”

“Nothing, only after this I’m just going to call you Ned. I know you’re quite a little older than I am, but just the same I’m going to call you Ned always.

“Don’t approve of Whalen, huh?”

“Sure I do,” said Tom, his voice full of feeling and with a simple boyishness which well became him in the circumstances, “only—what I mean is—you know what I mean—it’s that, oh just that you’re my closest friend. You saved my life, gee whiz, you old grouch, now you’ve got to take me for better or worse. Go ahead now, say something sarcastic.”