he felt that the only chance of instant help was in that
queer little bowl-shaped skiff of the "Ambuster."

He had never been conscious that he had observed it; but the image
had lain latent in his mind, biding its time. It might be ten, twenty
precious moments before another boat could be found. This one was on the
spot to do its duty at once.

"Somebody carried off,--perhaps a woman," Wade thought. "Not--No, she
would not neglect my warning! Whoever it is, we must save her from this
dreadful death!"

He sprang on board the little steamboat. She was swaying uneasily at her
moorings, as the ice crowded along and hammered against her stem. Wade
stared from her deck down the river, with all his life at his eyes.

More than a mile away, below the hemlock-crested point, was the dark
object Perry had seen, still stirring along the edges of the floating
ice. A broad avenue of leaden-green water wrinkled by the cold wind
separated the field where this figure was moving from the shore. Dark
object and its footing of gray ice were drifting deliberately farther
and farther away.

For one instant Wade thought that the terrible dread in his heart would
paralyze him. But in that one moment, while his blood stopped flowing
and his nerves failed, Bill Tarbos overtook him and was there by his
side.

"I brought your cap," says Bill, "and our two coats."

Wade put on his cap mechanically. This little action calmed him.

"Bill," said he, "I'm afraid it is a woman,--a dear friend of mine,--a
very dear friend."

Bill, a lover, understood the tone.

"We'll take care of her between us," he said.

The two turned at once to the little tub of a boat.

Oars? Yes,--slung under the thwarts,--a pair of short sculls, worn and
split, but with work in them still. There they hung ready,--and a rusty
boat-hook, besides.

"Find the thole-pins, Bill, while I cut a plug for her bottom out of
this broomstick," Wade said.

This was done in a moment. Bill threw in the coats.

"Now, together!"

They lifted the skiff to the gangway. Wade jumped down on the ice and
received her carefully. They ran her along, as far as they could go, and
launched her in the sludge.

"Take the sculls, Bill. I'll work the boat-hook in the bow."

Nothing more was said. They thrust out with their crazy little craft
into the thick of the ice-flood. Bill, amidships, dug with his sculls
in among the huddled cakes. It was clumsy pulling. Now this oar and now
that w