into the north. From bank to bank
stretched the savage ice. Here and there the water burst through and
flooded over, but in the chill nights froze solidly as ever. Tradition
has it that of old time the Yukon lay unbroken through three long
summers, and on the face of it there be traditions less easy of belief.

So summer waited for open water, and the tardy Yukon took to stretching
of days and cracking its stiff joints. Now an air-hole ate into the
ice, and ate and ate; or a fissure formed, and grew, and failed to
freeze again. Then the ice ripped from the shore and uprose bodily a
yard. But still the river was loth to loose its grip. It was a slow
travail, and man, used to nursing nature with pigmy skill, able to
burst waterspouts and harness waterfalls, could avail nothing against
the billions of frigid tons which refused to run down the hill to
Bering Sea.

On Split-up Island all were ready for the break-up. Waterways have
ever been first highways, and the Yukon was the sole highway in all the
land. So those bound up-river pitched their poling-boats and shod
their poles with iron, and those bound down caulked their scows and
barges and shaped spare sweeps with axe and drawing-knife. Jacob Welse
loafed and joyed in the utter cessation from work, and Frona joyed with
him in that it was good. But Baron Courbertin was in a fever at the
delay. His hot blood grew riotous after the long hibernation, and the
warm sunshine dazzled him with warmer fancies.

"Oh! Oh! It will never break! Never!" And he stood gazing at the
surly ice and raining politely phrased anathema upon it. "It is a
conspiracy, poor La Bijou, a conspiracy!" He caressed La Bijou like it
were a horse, for so he had christened the glistening Peterborough
canoe.

Frona and St. Vincent laughed and preached him the gospel of patience,
which he proceeded to tuck away into the deepest abysses of perdition
till interrupted by Jacob Welse.

"Look, Courbertin! Over there, south of the bluff. Do you make out
anything? Moving?"

"Yes; a dog."

"It moves too slowly for a dog. Frona, get the glasses."

Courbertin and St. Vincent sprang after them, but the latter knew their
abiding-place and returned triumphant. Jacob Welse put the binoculars
to his eyes and gazed steadily across the river. It was a sheer mile
from the island to the farther bank, and the sunglare on the ice was a
sore task to the vision.

"It is a man." He passed the g