at home with yer Aunt
Sophie, but big enough t' be put into ev'ry one o' their dreams and
plans. --So when they'd looked long, and with pleasure, at the fairy
work o' the frozen water, they turned and watched downstream. There was
a vast floor o' ice in that direction, all covered still with snow. At
the far edge o' the floor showed open water, flowin' in terrible
wildness, so that no boat ever rides safely in it, nor can anny man swim
through it and live.

"The rapids lay below there, but these were a long way off from the
sightseers at the Falls. They could see the tumblin', perhaps, and maybe
hear the roar. But what was under their feet was firm as the ground, and
they felt no fear."

"But--but was it safe?" Johnnie faltered. "Oh, Father Pat, I'm 'fraid it
wasn't!"

"Where they stood, it was," declared the Father. "But all at once, a
smart puff o' wind caught that pretty wisp o' veilin' from the young
wife, and wafted it away. And as quick as the wind itself after it she
darted; but when she was close to it, up and off it whirled again, and
she followed it, and he after her, and--shouts o' warnin' from all!"

Johnnie took his underlip in his teeth. By that power of his to call
before him vividly the people and places and things he heard, or read,
about, and to see everything as if it were before him, now he was seeing
the snow-covered flooring of the river, the hastening figure headed
toward danger, and the frightened one who pursued, while the sun shone,
and voices called, and the river roared below.

"There was good reason t' shout," continued the priest. "For by a bitter
chance the ice had cracked clear across 'twixt where the two were
hastenin' and where they had stood before."

Now Johnnie suddenly grew white, and his lip quivered out from its hold.
"But they must go back, Father Pat!" he cried, his breast heaving. "Oh,
they must go back!"

"They can't," answered the Father, speaking very low. "Oh, dear lad,
they're cut off from the shore. There's a big rift in the ice now, and
it's growin' each moment bigger, and they're on the wrong side o' it,
and--floatin' down river."

One-Eye slipped an arm about Johnnie, drawing the bright head to a
shoulder. "Are y' all right, sonny?" he asked huskily. "Can y' hear the
rest? Or----"

"Yes,"--but it was scarcely a whisper, and the flaxen lashes were
shuttering the gray eyes tight. "I--I ought t' be able t' stand just
hearin' it, if--if _they_ could stand the r