In the leads of clear water, the oarsman got brave pulls and sent the boat on mightily. Then again in the thick porridge of brash ice they lost headway, or were baffled and stopped among the cakes. Slow work, slow and painful; and for many minutes they seemed to gain nothing upon the steady flow of the merciless current.
A frail craft for such a voyage, this queer little half-pumpkin! A frail and leaky shell. She bent and cracked from stem to stem among the nipping masses. Water oozed in through her dry seams. Any moment a rougher touch or a sharper edge might cut her through. But that was a risk they had accepted. They did not take time to think of it, nor to listen to the crunching and crackling of the hungry ice around. They urged straight on, steadily, eagerly, coolly, spending and saving strength.
Not one moment to lose! The shattering of broad sheets of ice around then was a warning of what might happen to the frail support of their chase. One thrust of the boat-hook sometimes cleft a cake that to the eye seemed stout enough to bear a heavier weight than a woman’s.
Not one moment to spare! The dark figure, now drifted far below the hemlocks of the Point, no longer stirred. It seemed to have sunk upon the ice and to be resting there weary and helpless, on one side a wide way of lurid water, on the other half a mile of moving desolation.
Far to go, and no time to waste!
