water, dammed and thrown back by the ice,
not until it rises many feet and comes down with a volume and momentum
irresistible, will the final conflict come.

Hour after hour the people stand there on the bank, waiting to see the
barrier go down. Unwillingly, as the time goes on, this one, that one,
hurries away for a few minutes to prepare and devour a meal, back
again, breathless, upon rumour of that preparatory trembling, that
strange thrilling of the ice. The grinding and the crushing had begun
again.

The long tension, the mysterious sounds, the sense of some great
unbridled power at work, wrought on the steadiest nerves. People did
the oddest things. Down at the lower end of the town a couple of
miners, sick of the scurvy, had painfully clambered on their
roof--whether to see the sights or be out of harm's way, no one knew.
The stingiest man in Minook, who had refused to help them in their
cabin, carried them food on the roof. A woman made and took them the
Yukon remedy for their disease. They sat in state in sight of all men,
and drank spruce tea.

By one o'clock in the afternoon the river had risen eight feet, but the
ice barrier still held. The people, worn out, went away to sleep. All
that night the barrier held, though more ice came down and still the
water rose. Twelve feet now. The ranks of shattered ice along the shore
are claimed again as the flood widens and licks them in. The
cheechalkos' cabins are flooded to the caves. Stout fellows in
hip-boots take a boat and rescue the scurvy-stricken from the roof. And
still the barrier held.

People began to go about their usual avocations. The empty Gold Nugget
filled again. Men sat, as they had done all the winter, drinking, and
reading the news of eight months before, out of soiled and tattered
papers.

Late the following day everyone started up at a new sound. Again
miners, Indians, and dogs lined the bank, saw the piled ice masses
tremble, heard a crashing and grinding as of mountains of glass hurled
together, saw the barrier give way, and the frozen wastes move down on
the bosom of the flood. Higher yet the water rose--the current ran
eight miles an hour. And now the ice masses were less enormous, more
broken. Somewhere far below another jam. Another long bout of waiting.

Birds are singing everywhere. Between the white snowdrifts the Arctic
moss shows green and yellow, white flowers star the hills.

Half the town is packed, ready to catch the boat