duration, began from above and
passed by.

"Oh, why don't they hurry!"

The two specks had stopped, evidently in conversation. She ran the
glasses hastily up and down the river. Though another roar had risen,
she could make out no commotion. The ice lay still and motionless.
The robins resumed their singing, and the squirrels were chattering
with spiteful glee.

"Don't fear, Frona." St. Vincent put his arm about her protectingly.
"If there is any danger, they know it better than we, and they are
taking their time."

"I never saw a big river break up," she confessed, and resigned herself
to the waiting.

The roars rose and fell sporadically, but there were no other signs of
disruption, and gradually the two men, with frequent duckings, worked
inshore. The water was streaming from them and they were shivering
severely as they came up the bank.

"At last!" Frona had both her father's hands in hers. "I thought you
would never come back."

"There, there. Run and get dinner," Jacob Welse laughed. "There was
no danger."

"But what was it?"

"Stewart River's broken and sending its ice down under the Yukon ice.
We could hear the grinding plainly out there."

"Ah! And it was terrible! terrible!" cried the baron. "And that poor,
poor man, we cannot save him!"

"Yes, we can. We'll have a try with the dogs after dinner. Hurry,
Frona."

But the dogs were a failure. Jacob Welse picked out the leaders as the
more intelligent, and with grub-packs on them drove them out from the
bank. They could not grasp what was demanded of them. Whenever they
tried to return they were driven back with sticks and clods and
imprecations. This only bewildered them, and they retreated out of
range, whence they raised their wet, cold paws and whined pitifully to
the shore.

"If they could only make it once, they would understand, and then it
would go like clock-work. Ah! Would you? Go on! Chook, Miriam!
Chook! The thing is to get the first one across."

Jacob Welse finally succeeded in getting Miriam, lead-dog to Frona's
team, to take the trail left by him and the baron. The dog went on
bravely, scrambling over, floundering through, and sometimes swimming;
but when she had gained the farthest point reached by them, she sat
down helplessly. Later on, she cut back to the shore at a tangent,
landing on the deserted island above; and an hour afterwards trotted
into camp minus the grub-pack. Then the two dogs, hover