CHAPTER XXV
La Bijou was a perfect expression of all that was dainty and delicatein the boat-builder's soul. Light as an egg-shell, and as fragile, herthree-eighths-inch skin offered no protection from a driving chunk ofice as small as a man's head. Nor, though the water was open, did shefind a clear way, for the river was full of scattered floes which hadcrumbled down from the rim-ice. And here, at once, through skilfulhandling, Corliss took to himself confidence in Frona.
It was a great picture: the river rushing blackly between itscrystalline walls; beyond, the green woods stretching upward to touchthe cloud-flecked summer sky; and over all, like a furnace blast, thehot sun beating down. A great picture, but somehow Corliss's mindturned to his mother and her perennial tea, the soft carpets, the primNew England maid-servants, the canaries singing in the wide windows,and he wondered if she could understand. And when he thought of thewoman behind him, and felt the dip and lift, dip and lift, of herpaddle, his mother's women came back to him, one by one, and passed inlong review,--pale, glimmering ghosts, he thought, caricatures of thestock which had replenished the earth, and which would continue toreplenish the earth.
La Bijou skirted a pivoting floe, darted into a nipping channel, andshot out into the open with the walls grinding together behind. Tommygroaned.
"Well done!" Corliss encouraged.
"The fule wumman!" came the backward snarl. "Why couldna she bide abit?"
Frona caught his words and flung a laugh defiantly. Vance darted aglance over his shoulder to her, and her smile was witchery. Her cap,perched precariously, was sliding off, while her flying hair, aglint inthe sunshine, framed her face as he had seen it framed on the DyeaTrail.
"How I should like to sing, if it weren't for saving one's breath. Saythe 'Song of the Sword,' or the 'Anchor Chanty.'"
"Or the 'First Chanty,'" Corliss answered. "'Mine was the woman,darkling I found her,'" he hummed, significantly.
She flashed her paddle into the water on the opposite side in order togo wide of a jagged cake, and seemed not to hear. "I could go on thisway forever."
"And I," Corliss affirmed, warmly.
But she refused to take notice, saying, instead, "Vance, do you knowI'm glad we're friends?"
"No fault of mine we're not more."
"You're losing your stroke, sir," she reprimanded; and he bent silentlyto the work.
La Bijou was driving against the current at an angle of forty-fivedegrees, and her resultant course was a line at right angles to theriver. Thus, she would tap the western bank directly opposite thestarting-point, where she could work up-stream in the slacker flood.But a mile of indented shore, and then a hundred yards of bluffs risingprecipitously from out a stiff current would still lie between them andthe man to be rescued.
"Now let us ease up," Corliss advised, as they slipped into an eddy anddrifted with the back-tide under the great wall of rim-ice.
"Who would think it mid-May?" She glanced up at the carelessly poisedcakes. "Does it seem real to you, Vance?"
He shook his head.
"Nor to me. I know that I, Frona, in the flesh, am here, in aPeterborough, paddling for dear life with two men; year of our Lordeighteen hundred and ninety-eight, Alaska, Yukon River; this is water,that is ice; my arms are tired, my heart up a few beats, and I amsweating,--and yet it seems all a dream. Just think! A year ago I wasin Paris!" She drew a deep breath and looked out over the water to thefurther shore, where Jacob Welse's tent, like a snowy handkerchief,sprawled against the deep green of the forest. "I do not believe thereis such a place," she added. "There is no Paris."
"And I was in London a twelvemonth past," Corliss meditated. "But Ihave undergone a new incarnation. London? There is no London now. Itis impossible. How could there be so many people in the world? Thisis the world, and we know of fact that there are very few people in it,else there could not be so much ice and sea and sky. Tommy, here, Iknow, thinks fondly of a place he calls Toronto. He mistakes. Itexists only in his mind,--a memory of a former life he knew. Ofcourse, he does not think so. That is but natural; for he is nophilosopher, nor does he bother--"
"Wheest, will ye!" Tommy fiercely whispered. "Your gabble'll bring itdoon aboot oor heads."
Life is brief in the Northland, and fulfilment ever clutters the heelsof prophecy. A premonitory tremor sighed down the air, and the rainbowwall swayed above them. The three paddles gripped the water withcommon accord. La Bijou leaped out from under. Broadside afterbroadside flared and crashed, and a thousand frigid tons thundered downbehind them. The displaced water surged outward in a foamy, upstandingcircle, and La Bijou, striving wildly to rise, ducked through the stiffoverhang of the crest and wallowed, half-full, in the trough.
"Dinna I tell ye, ye gabbling fules!"
"Sit still, and bail!" Corliss checked him sharply. "Or you'll nothave the comfort of telling us anything."
He shook his head at Frona, and she winked back; then they bothchuckled, much like children over an escapade which looks disastrousbut turns out well.
Creeping timidly under the shadow of the impending avalanches, La Bijouslipped noiselessly up the last eddy. A corner of the bluff rosesavagely from the river--a monstrous mass of naked rock, scarred andbattered of the centuries; hating the river that gnawed it ever; hatingthe rain that graved its grim face with unsightly seams; hating the sunthat refused to mate with it, whereof green life might come forth andhide its hideousness. The whole force of the river hurled in againstit, waged furious war along its battlements, and caromed off intomid-stream again. Down all its length the stiff waves stood in serriedrows, and its crevices and water-worn caverns were a-bellow with unseenstrife.
"Now! Bend to it! Your best!"
It was the last order Corliss could give, for in the din they wereabout to enter a man's voice were like a cricket's chirp amid thegrowling of an earthquake. La Bijou sprang forward, cleared the eddywith a bound, and plunged into the thick. _Dip and lift, dip andlift_, the paddles worked with rhythmic strength. The water rippledand tore, and pulled all ways at once; and the fragile shell, unable togo all ways at once, shook and quivered with the shock of resistance.It veered nervously to the right and left, but Frona held it with ahand of steel. A yard away a fissure in the rock grinned at them. LaBijou leaped and shot ahead, and the water, slipping away underneath,kept her always in one place. Now they surged out from the fissure,now in; ahead for half a yard, then back again; and the fissure mockedtheir toil.
Five minutes, each of which sounded a separate eternity, and thefissure was past. Ten minutes, and it was a hundred feet astern. _Dipand lift, dip and lift_, till sky and earth and river were blotted out,and consciousness dwindled to a thin line,--a streak of foam, fringedon the one hand with sneering rock, on the other with snarling water.That thin line summed up all. Somewhere below was the beginning ofthings; somewhere above, beyond the roar and traffic, was the end ofthings; and for that end they strove.
And still Frona held the egg-shell with a hand of steel. What theygained they held, and fought for more, inch by inch, _dip and lift_;and all would have been well but for the flutter of Tommy's soul. Acake of ice, sucked beneath by the current, rose under his paddle witha flurry of foam, turned over its toothed edge, and was dragged backinto the depths. And in that sight he saw himself, hair streamingupward and drowned hands clutching emptiness, going feet first, downand down. He stared, wide-eyed, at the portent, and his poised paddlerefused to strike. On the instant the fissure grinned in their faces,and the next they were below the bluffs, drifting gently in the eddy.
Frona lay, head thrown back, sobbing at the sun; amidships Corlisssprawled panting; and forward, choking and gasping and nerveless, theScotsman drooped his head upon his knees. La Bijou rubbed softlyagainst the rim-ice and came to rest. The rainbow-wall hung above likea fairy pile; the sun, flung backward from innumerable facets, clothedit in jewelled splendor. Silvery streams tinkled down its crystalslopes; and in its clea
r depths seemed to unfold, veil on veil, thesecrets of life and death and mortal striving,--vistas ofpale-shimmering azure opening like dream-visions, and promising, downthere in the great cool heart, infinite rest, infinite cessation andrest.
The topmost tower, delicately massive, a score of feet above them,swayed to and fro, gently, like the ripple of wheat in light summerairs. But Corliss gazed at it unheeding. Just to lie there, on themarge of the mystery, just to lie there and drink the air in greatgulps, and do nothing!--he asked no more. A dervish, whirling on heeltill all things blur, may grasp the essence of the universe and provethe Godhead indivisible; and so a man, plying a paddle, and plying andplying, may shake off his limitations and rise above time and space.And so Corliss.
But gradually his blood ceased its mad pounding, and the air was nolonger nectar-sweet, and a sense of things real and pressing came backto him.
"We've got to get out of this," he said. His voice sounded like aman's whose throat has been scorched by many and long potations. Itfrightened him, but he limply lifted a shaking paddle and shoved off.
"Yes; let us start, by all means," Frona said in a dim voice, whichseemed to come to him from a far distance.
Tommy lifted his head and gazed about. "A doot we'll juist hae to gieit oop."
"Bend to it!"
"Ye'll no try it anither?"
"Bend to it!" Corliss repeated.
"Till your heart bursts, Tommy," Frona added.
Once again they fought up the thin line, and all the world vanished,save the streak of foam, and the snarling water, and the grinningfissure. But they passed it, inch by inch, and the broad bend welcomedthem from above, and only a rocky buttress of implacable hate, aroundwhose base howled the tides of an equal hate, stood between. Then LaBijou leaped and throbbed and shook again, and the current slid outfrom under, and they remained ever in one place. _Dip and lift, dipand lift_, through an infinity of time and torture and travail, tilleven the line dimmed and faded and the struggle lost its meaning.Their souls became merged in the rhythm of the toil. Ever lifting,ever falling, they seemed to have become great pendulums of time. Andbefore and behind glimmered the eternities, and between the eternities,ever lifting, ever falling, they pulsed in vast rhythmical movement.They were no longer humans, but rhythms. They surged in till theirpaddles touched the bitter rock, but they did not know; surged out,where chance piloted them unscathed through the lashing ice, but theydid not see. Nor did they feel the shock of the smitten waves, nor thedriving spray that cooled their faces. . .
La Bijou veered out into the stream, and their paddles, flashingmechanically in the sunshine, held her to the return angle across theriver. As time and matter came back to them, and Split-up Islanddawned upon their eyes like the foreshore of a new world, they settleddown to the long easy stroke wherein breath and strength may berecovered.
"A third attempt would have been useless," Corliss said, in a dry,cracked whisper.
And Frona answered, "Yes; our hearts would have surely broken."
Life, and the pleasant camp-fire, and the quiet rest in the noondayshade, came back to Tommy as the shore drew near, and more than all,blessed Toronto, its houses that never moved, and its jostling streets.Each time his head sank forward and he reached out and clutched thewater with his paddle, the streets enlarged, as though gazing through atelescope and adjusting to a nearer focus. And each time the paddledrove clear and his head was raised, the island bounded forward. Hishead sank, and the streets were of the size of life; it raised, andJacob Welse and the two men stood on the bank three lengths away.
"Dinna I tell ye!" he shouted to them, triumphantly.
But Frona jerked the canoe parallel with the bank, and he found himselfgazing at the long up-stream stretch. He arrested a stroke midway, andhis paddle clattered in the bottom.
"Pick it up!" Corliss's voice was sharp and relentless.
"I'll do naething o' the kind." He turned a rebellious face on histormentor, and ground his teeth in anger and disappointment.
The canoe was drifting down with the current, and Frona merely held itin place. Corliss crawled forward on his knees.
"I don't want to hurt you, Tommy," he said in a low, tense voice, "so. . . well, just pick it up, that's a good fellow."
"I'll no."
"Then I shall kill you," Corliss went on, in the same calm, passionlessway, at the same time drawing his hunting-knife from its sheath.
"And if I dinna?" the Scotsman queried stoutly, though cowering away.
Corliss pressed gently with the knife. The point of the steel enteredTommy's back just where the heart should be, passed slowly through theshirt, and bit into the skin. Nor did it stop there; neither did itquicken, but just as slowly held on its way. He shrank back, quivering.
"There! there! man! Pit it oop!" he shrieked. "I maun gie in!"
Frona's face was quite pale, but her eyes were hard, brilliantly hard,and she nodded approval.
"We're going to try this side, and shoot across from above," she calledto her father. "What? I can't hear. Tommy? Oh, his heart's weak.Nothing serious." She saluted with her paddle. "We'll be back in notime, father mine. In no time."
Stewart River was wide open, and they ascended it a quarter of a milebefore they shot its mouth and continued up the Yukon. But when theywere well abreast of the man on the opposite bank a new obstacle facedthem. A mile above, a wreck of an island clung desperately to theriver bed. Its tail dwindled to a sand-spit which bisected the riveras far down as the impassable bluffs. Further, a few hundred thousandtons of ice had grounded upon the spit and upreared a glittering ridge.
"We'll have to portage," Corliss said, as Frona turned the canoe fromthe bank.
La Bijou darted across the narrower channel to the sand-spit andslipped up a little ice ravine, where the walls were less precipitous.They landed on an out-jutting cake, which, without support, overhungthe water for sheer thirty feet. How far its other end could be buriedin the mass was matter for conjecture. They climbed to the summit,dragging the canoe after them, and looked out over the dazzle. Floewas piled on floe in titanic confusion. Huge blocks topped andovertopped one another, only to serve as pedestals for great whitemasses, which blazed and scintillated in the sun like monstrous jewels.
"A bonny place for a bit walk," Tommy sneered, "wi' the next jam fairto come ony time." He sat down resolutely. "No, thank ye kindly, I'llno try it."
Frona and Corliss clambered on, the canoe between them.
"The Persians lashed their slaves into battle," she remarked, lookingback. "I never understood before. Hadn't you better go back afterhim?"
Corliss kicked him up, whimpering, and forced him to go on in advance.The canoe was an affair of little weight, but its bulk, on the steeprises and sharp turns, taxed their strength. The sun burned down uponthem. Its white glare hurt their eyes, the sweat oozed out from everypore, and they panted for breath.
"Oh, Vance, do you know . . ."
"What?" He swept the perspiration from his forehead and flung it fromhim with a quick flirt of the hand.
"I wish I had eaten more breakfast."
He grunted sympathetically. They had reached the midmost ridge andcould see the open river, and beyond, quite clearly, the man and hissignal of distress. Below, pastoral in its green quiet, lay Split-upIsland. They looked up to the broad bend of the Yukon, smiling lazily,as though it were not capable at any moment of spewing forth a flood ofdeath. At their feet the ice sloped down into a miniature gorge,across which the sun cast a broad shadow.
"Go on, Tommy," Frona bade. "We're half-way over, and there's waterdown there."
"It's water ye'd be thinkin' on, is it?" he snarled, "and you a-leadin'a buddie to his death!"
"I fear you have done some great sin, Tommy," she said, with areproving shake of the head, "or else you would not be so afraid ofdeath." She sighed and picked up her end of the canoe. "Well, Isuppose it is natural. You do not know how to die--"
&
nbsp; "No more do I want to die," he broke in fiercely.
"But there come times for all men to die,--times when to die is theonly thing to do. Perhaps this is such a time."
Tommy slid carefully over a glistening ledge and dropped his height toa broad foothold. "It's a' vera guid," he grinned up; "but dinna yethink a've suffeecient discreemeenation to judge for mysel'? Whyshould I no sing my ain sang?"
"Because you do not know how. The strong have ever pitched the key forsuch as you. It is they that have taught your kind when and how todie, and led you to die, and lashed you to die."
"Ye pit it fair," he rejoined. "And ye do it weel. It doesna behooveme to complain, sic a michty fine job ye're makin' on it."
"You are doing well," Corliss chuckled, as Tommy dropped out of sightand landed into the bed of the gorge. "The cantankerous brute! he'dargue on the trail to Judgment."
"Where did you learn to paddle?" she asked.
"College--exercise," he answered, shortly. "But isn't that fine?Look!"
The melting ice had formed a pool in the bottom of the gorge. Fronastretched out full length, and dipped her hot mouth in its coolness.And lying as she did, the soles of her dilapidated moccasins, or ratherthe soles of her feet (for moccasins and stockings had gone in shreds),were turned upward. They were very white, and from contact with theice were bruised and cut. Here and there the blood oozed out, and fromone of the toes it streamed steadily.
"So wee, and pretty, and salt-like," Tommy gibed. "One wouldna thinkthey could lead a strong man to hell."
"By the way you grumble, they're leading you fast enough," Corlissanswered angrily.
"Forty mile an hour," Tommy retorted, as he walked away, gloating overhaving the last word.
"One moment. You've two shirts. Lend me one."
The Scotsman's face lighted inquisitively, till he comprehended. Thenhe shook his head and started on again.
Frona scrambled to her feet. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing. Sit down."
"But what is the matter?"
Corliss put his hands on her shoulders and pressed her back. "Yourfeet. You can't go on in such shape. They're in ribbons. See!" Hebrushed the sole of one of them and held up a blood-dripping palm."Why didn't you tell me?"
"Oh, they didn't bother--much."
"Give me one of your skirts," he demanded.
"I . . ." She faltered. "I only have one."
He looked about him. Tommy had disappeared among the ice-floes.
"We must be getting on," Frona said, attempting to rise.
But he held her back. "Not another step till I fix you. Here goes, soshut your eyes."
She obeyed, and when she opened them he was naked to the waist, and hisundershirt, torn in strips, was being bound about her feet.
"You were in the rear, and I did not know--"
"Don't apologize, pray," she interrupted. "I could have spoken."
"I'm not; I'm reproaching you. Now, the other one. Put it up!"
The nearness to her bred a madness, and he touched his lips lightly tothe same white little toe that had won the Baron Courbertin a kiss.
Though she did not draw back, her face flushed, and she thrilled as shehad thrilled once before in her life. "You take advantage of your owngoodness," she rebuked him.
"Then I will doubly advantage myself."
"Please don't," she begged.
"And why not? It is a custom of the sea to broach the spirits as theship prepares to sink. And since this is a sort of a forlorn hope, youknow, why not?"
"But . . ."
"But what, Miss Prim?"
"Oh! Of all things, you know I do not deserve that! If there werenobody else to be considered, why, under the circumstances . . ."
He drew the last knot tight and dropped her foot. "Damn St. Vincent,anyway! Come on!"
"So would I, were I you," she laughed, taking up her end of the canoe."But how you have changed, Vance. You are not the same man I met onthe Dyea Trail. You hadn't learned to swear, then, among other things."
"No, I'm not the same; for which I thank God and you. Only I think Iam honester than you. I always live up to my philosophy."
"Now confess that's unfair. You ask too much under thecircumstances--"
"Only a little toe."
"Or else, I suppose, you just care for me in a kind, big-brotherly way.In which case, if you really wish it, you may--"
"Do keep quiet," he broke in, roughly, "or I'll be making a gorgeousfool of myself."
"Kiss all my toes," she finished.
He grunted, but did not deign a reply. The work quickly took theirbreath, and they went on in silence till they descended the last steepto where McPherson waited by the open river.
"Del hates St. Vincent," she said boldly. "Why?"
"Yes, it seems that way." He glanced back at her curiously. "Andwherever he goes, Del lugs an old Russian book, which he can't read butwhich he nevertheless regards, in some sort of way, as St. Vincent'sNemesis. And do you know, Frona, he has such faith in it that I can'thelp catching a little myself. I don't know whether you'll come to me,or whether I'll go to you, but--"
She dropped her end of the canoe and broke out in laughter. He wasannoyed, and a hurt spread of blood ruddied his face.
"If I have--" he began.
"Stupid!" she laughed. "Don't be silly! And above all don't bedignified. It doesn't exactly become you at the present moment,--yourhair all tangled, a murderous knife in your belt, and naked to thewaist like a pirate stripped for battle. Be fierce, frown, swear,anything, but please don't be dignified. I do wish I had my camera.In after years I could say: 'This, my friends, is Corliss, the greatArctic explorer, just as he looked at the conclusion of hisworld-famous trip _Through Darkest Alaska_.'"
He pointed an ominous finger at her and said sternly, "Where is yourskirt?"
She involuntarily looked down. But its tatterdemalion presencerelieved her, and her face jerked up scarlet.
"You should be ashamed!"
"Please, please do not be dignified," he laughed. "Very true, itdoesn't exactly become you at the present moment. Now, if I had mycamera--"
"Do be quiet and go on," she said. "Tommy is waiting. I hope the suntakes the skin all off your back," she panted vindictively, as theyslid the canoe down the last shelf and dropped it into the water.
Ten minutes later they climbed the ice-wall, and on and up the bank,which was partly a hillside, to where the signal of distress stillfluttered. Beneath it, on the ground, lay stretched the man. He layvery quietly, and the fear that they were too late was upon them, whenhe moved his head slightly and moaned. His rough clothes were in rags,and the black, bruised flesh of his feet showed through the remnants ofhis moccasins. His body was thin and gaunt, without flesh-pads ormuscles, while the bones seemed ready to break through thetight-stretched skin. As Corliss felt his pulse, his eyes flutteredopen and stared glassily. Frona shuddered.
"Man, it's fair gruesome," McPherson muttered, running his hand up ashrunken arm.
"You go on to the canoe, Frona," Corliss said. "Tommy and I will carryhim down."
But her lips set firmly. Though the descent was made easier by heraid, the man was well shaken by the time they laid him in the bottom ofthe canoe,--so well shaken that some last shreds of consciousness werearoused. He opened his eyes and whispered hoarsely, "Jacob Welse . . .despatches . . . from the Outside." He plucked feebly at his openshirt, and across his emaciated chest they saw the leather strap, towhich, doubtless, the despatch-pouch was slung.
At either end of the canoe there was room to spare, but amidshipsCorliss was forced to paddle with the man between his knees. La Bijouswung out blithely from the bank. It was down-stream at last, andthere was little need for exertion.
Vance's arms and shoulders and back, a bright scarlet, caught Frona'sattention. "My hopes are realized," she exulted, reaching out andsoftly stroking a burning arm. "We shall have to put cold cream o
n itwhen we get back."
"Go ahead," he encouraged. "That feels awfully good."
She splashed his hot back with a handful of the ice-cold water fromover-side. He caught his breath with a gasp, and shivered. Tommyturned about to look at them.
"It's a guid deed we'll 'a doon this day," he remarked, pleasantly."To gie a hand in distress is guid i' the sight of God."
"Who's afeared ?" Frona laughed.
"Weel," he deliberated, "I was a bit fashed, no doot, but--"
His utterance ceased, and he seemed suddenly to petrify. His eyesfixed themselves in a terrible stare over Frona's shoulder. And then,slowly and dreamily, with the solemnity fitting an invocation of Deity,murmured, "Guid Gawd Almichty!"
They whirled their heads about. A wall of ice was sweeping round thebend, and even as they looked the right-hand flank, unable to compassthe curve, struck the further shore and flung up a ridge of heavingmountains.
"Guid Gawd! Guid Gawd! Like rats i' the trap!" Tommy jabbed hispaddle futilely in the water.
"Get the stroke!" Corliss hissed in his ear, and La Bijou sprang away.
Frona steered straight across the current, at almost right angles, forSplit-up; but when the sandspit, over which they had portaged, crashedat the impact of a million tons, Corliss glanced at her anxiously. Shesmiled and shook her head, at the same time slacking off the course.
"We can't make it," she whispered, looking back at the ice a couple ofhundred feet away. "Our only chance is to run before it and work inslowly."
She cherished every inward inch jealously, holding the canoe up assharply as she dared and at the same time maintaining a constantdistance ahead of the ice-rim.
"I canna stand the pace," Tommy whimpered once; but the silence ofCorliss and Frona seemed ominous, and he kept his paddle going.
At the very fore of the ice was a floe five or six feet thick and acouple of acres in extent. Reaching out in advance of the pack, itclove through the water till on either side there formed a bore likethat of a quick flood-tide in an inland passage. Tommy caught sight ofit, and would have collapsed had not Corliss prodded him, betweenstrokes, with the point of his paddle.
"We can keep ahead," Frona panted; "but we must get time to make thelanding?"
"When the chance comes, drive her in, bow on," Corliss counselled; "andwhen she strikes, jump and run for it."
"Climb, rather. I'm glad my skirt is short."
Repulsed by the bluffs of the left bank, the ice was forced towards theright. The big floe, in advance, drove in upon the precise point ofSplit-up Island.
"If you look back, I'll brain you with the paddle," Corliss threatened.
"Ay," Tommy groaned.
But Corliss looked back, and so did Frona. The great berg struck theland with an earthquake shock. For fifty feet the soft island wasdemolished. A score of pines swayed frantically and went down, andwhere they went down rose up a mountain of ice, which rose, and fell,and rose again. Below, and but a few feet away, Del Bishop ran out tothe bank, and above the roar they could hear faintly his "Hit 'er up!Hit 'er up!" Then the ice-rim wrinkled up and he sprang back to escapeit.
"The first opening," Corliss gasped.
Frona's lips spread apart; she tried to speak but failed, then noddedher head that she had heard. They swung along in rapid rhythm underthe rainbow-wall, looking for a place where it might be quicklycleared. And down all the length of Split-up Island they raced vainly,the shore crashing behind them as they fled.
As they darted across the mouth of the back-channel to Roubeau Islandthey found themselves heading directly for an opening in the rim-ice.La Bijou drove into it full tilt, and went half her length out of wateron a shelving cake. The three leaped together, but while the two ofthem gripped the canoe to run it up, Tommy, in the lead, strove only tosave himself. And he would have succeeded had he not slipped andfallen midway in the climb. He half arose, slipped, and fell again.Corliss, hauling on the bow of the canoe, trampled over him. Hereached up and clutched the gunwale. They did not have the strength,and this clog brought them at once to a standstill. Corliss lookedback and yelled for him to leave go, but he only turned upward apiteous face, like that of a drowning man, and clutched more tightly.Behind them the ice was thundering. The first flurry of comingdestruction was upon them. They endeavored desperately to drag up thecanoe, but the added burden was too much, and they fell on their knees.The sick man sat up suddenly and laughed wildly. "Blood of my soul!"he ejaculated, and laughed again.
Roubeau Island swayed to the first shock, and the ice was rocking undertheir feet. Frona seized a paddle and smashed the Scotsman's knuckles;and the instant he loosed his grip, Corliss carried the canoe up in amad rush, Frona clinging on and helping from behind. The rainbow-wallcurled up like a scroll, and in the convolutions of the scroll, like abee in the many folds of a magnificent orchid, Tommy disappeared.
They fell, breathless, on the earth. But a monstrous cake shoved upfrom the jam and balanced above them. Frona tried to struggle to herfeet, but sank on her knees; and it remained for Corliss to snatch herand the canoe out from underneath. Again they fell, this time underthe trees, the sun sifting down upon them through the green pineneedles, the robins singing overhead, and a colony of crickets chirpingin the warmth.