as it swept
down toward Woody Point. The girls shot in toward the shore, where the
shadow of the high bluff lay heavily upon the ice.

They heard the boys' voices somewhere below them, but Bess and Nan could
not see them yet. They knew that the boys had divided into sides and
were playing old-fashioned hockey, "shinny-on-your-own-side" as it was
locally called. Above the rumbling of the train they heard the crack of
the shinny-stick against the wooden block, and the "z-z-z-zip!" of the
missile as it scaled over the ice.

"Those boys will get into the ice-hole if they don't look out," Nan had
just said to her chum, when suddenly a wild yell arose from the hockey
players.

The train was slowing down at the signal tower, and finally stopped
there. A freight had got in on the main track which had to be cleared
before the passenger train could go into Tillbury station. The coaches
stood right along the edge of the frozen pond.

But it was nothing in connection with the evening train that caused such
a commotion among the skaters near the stamp factory. There was a crash
of breaking ice and a scrambling of skaters away from the spot. The
boys' yells communicated panic to other people ashore.

"He's in! He's in!" Nan and Bess heard the boys yelling. Then a man's
voice took up the cry: "He'll be drowned! Help! Help!"

"That's old Peter Newkirk," gasped Nan, squeezing Bess' gloved hands
tightly. "He's night watchman at the stamp works, and he has only one
arm. He can't help that boy."

The youngsters who had been playing hockey so recklessly near the thin
ice, were not as old as Nan and Bess, and the accident had thrown them
into utter confusion. Some skated for the shore, screaming for ropes
and fence-rails; others only tried to get away from the danger spot
themselves. None did the first thing to help their comrade who had
broken through the ice.

"Where are you going, Nan?" gasped Bess, pulling back. "You'll have us
both in the water, too."

"We can save him! Quick!" returned her chum eagerly.

She let go of Bess and unwound the long muffler from about her own neck.
"If we could only see him!" the girl said, over and over.

And then a brilliant idea struck Nan Sherwood, and she turned to shout
to old Peter Newkirk on the shore. "Peter! Peter! Turn on the electric
light sign! Turn it on so we can see where he's gone in!"

The watchman had all his wits about him. There was a huge electric sign
on the stamp works