"Oh, he's going to leave us!"

"No, he's probably gone for help!" said Betty. "Oh, there goes another
piece of our floe!"

"Help! Help! Hurry!" shouted Mollie, the others joining their voices to
hers.

Presently the man was seen to be pushing something down to the river.

"It's a boat!" cried Betty. "Now we're all right!" And it did seem to be
some sort of boat in which the man was coming to the rescue.

CHAPTER XXI

A HELPING HAND

"What is he doing?"

"What a queer boat!"

"Sometimes it's in the water, and again it's on the ice!"

"No matter! He's coming to save us, and it's high time! There goes
another chunk off our ice raft!"

It was Betty who gave voice to the last, and Grace, Amy and Mollie in
turn, who had expressed the other sentiments. All were true in their
way. The man did certainly seem to be advancing in a peculiar manner. At
times he appeared to be rowing, or padding, and again he propelled
himself over a big cake of ice, pushing himself along by means of short
poles on either side of the boat.

And, as Mollie had said, at times he was in the water, and again gliding
over the ice. What Betty had said was but too true. Now and then, with a
startling report, the big floe on which rested the auto ice boat
containing the girls would be lessened by a great chunk, that would
break off, and go floating away.

"Oh, hurry! Do, please, hurry!" breathed Grace, as she sat huddled close
beside Amy, gazing now and then into the ice-encumbered black water that
seemed momentarily to be encroaching on their margin of safety.

"We can never all get in that boat!" decided Amy, as the man alternately
pushed and paddled it toward them. "It will only hold two, and he'll
have to make four trips. It may be too late--for the last one!"

"He's doing all he can," said Betty. "Perhaps the boat will hold more
than you think." But, even as she said this she looked askance at the
peculiar craft. Clearly it was small, and at most could hold but three.
There would be danger in this even. And it would necessitate two trips
at best. This delay, with the constantly-decreasing size of the floe
meant danger for two of them.

"Hold on, ladies, I'm coming!!" cried the man in the boat. "I'll soon
have you safe ashore. Don't jump, whatever you do, or you'll be ground
to pieces by the ice cakes!"

"Cheerful prospect," remarked Betty grimly.

Amy and Grace did not try to conceal the tears in their eyes. Mollie
was m