The problem was, how the children had escaped thus far; and as the sturdy lad stood out on the pond with the long limb grasped in his hand, staring around him, he could not but wonder how it was he had been preserved after driving directly into the forest when it was literally aflame from one end to the other.

But these thoughts were only for the moment; he had left Nellie, not expecting to be out of her sight, much less beyond her hearing, and she had vanished as mysteriously as if the earth had opened and swallowed her up.

And yet he could not believe she was lost.  She had proven that she was not the weak girl to do anything rashly, or to sit down and fold her hands and make no attempt to save herself.  Something more than the general danger which impended over both must have arisen, during that brief period, to drive her from her post.

“Nellie!  Nellie!” he called again, shoving the pole vigorously against the bottom of the pond.

He was sure he heard the faint response this time, and so distinctly that he caught the direction; it was from a point on the shore very nearly opposite where he had left her.

“I hear you,” he called back, working the unwieldy float toward the spot; “I’ll soon be there.”

The distance was not great and it took but a few minutes to approach quite close to the land, where, with a delight which can scarcely be imagined, he saw Nellie standing close to the water’s edge, beckoning him to make all haste.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, as he forced the craft close to her.

“No,” she answered, with a strange laugh, “but I thought my last moment had come.”

“Didn’t you hear me call you?”

“Of course I did; any one within a mile could hear you.”

“Why then didn’t you answer me?”

“I was afraid to.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Didn’t you see him?” was the puzzling question of Nellie in return, as she stepped carefully upon the raft, helped by the extended hand of her brother.

“Nellie, stop talking in puzzles,” said Nick; “I was so scared about you that I won’t get over it for a week; I called to, and hunted for you, and you say you heard me; you must have known how frightened I was, and yet you stood still and never made any answer, except a minute ago, when I just managed to hear you.  If you think it is right, I don’t—­that’s all.”

He turned away offended, when she said: 

“Forgive me, Nick; but I was afraid to answer you.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of that bear—­you must have seen him,” was the astonishing answer of the girl.

Nellie then told her story:  she was standing on the shore awaiting the return of her brother, when she was terrified almost out of senses by the appearance of a large black bear, which was evidently driven out of the burning forest by the flames.