Carolyn of the Corners Part 37

There was a movement out in the cove. One field of ice crashed against another. Mr. Stagg stifled a moan and was one of the first to climb down to the level of the ice.

"Have a care, Joe," somebody warned him. "This snow on the ice will mask the holes and fissures something scandalous."

But Joseph Stagg was reckless of his own safety. He started out into the snow, shouting again:

"Prince! Prince! Here, boy! Here, boy!"

There was no answering bark. The ice cracked and shuddered and the gale slapped the snow against the searchers more fiercely than before. Had they been facing the wind, the snow would fairly have blinded them.

"And that's what's happened to the boy," declared one of the men. "Don't you see? He's got to face it to get back to town."

"Then he is drifted with it," said Mr. Stagg hopelessly.

"Say, he'll know which is the right way! Hear that bell?" rejoined another. "You can hear the chapel bell when you're beating into the cove with the wind dead against you. I know, for I've been there."

"Me, too," agreed another.

The clanging of the chapel bell was a comforting sound. Joseph Stagg did not know that, unable to find the s.e.xton, Amanda Parlow had forced the church door and was tugging at the rough rope herself.

Back and forth she rang the iron clapper, and it was no uncertain note that clanged across the storm-driven cove that afternoon. It was not work to which Carolyn May's "pretty lady" was used. Her shoulders soon ached and the palms of her hands were raw and bleeding. But she continued to toll the bell without a moment's surcease.

She did not know how much that resonant sound might mean to those out on the ice-to the little girl and the boy who might have no other means of locating the sh.o.r.e, to the men who were searching for the lost ones; for they, too, might be lost in the storm.

The axle of the old bell groaned and shrieked at each revolution. Miss Amanda pulled on the rope desperately. She did not think to put her foot in the loop of the rope to aid her in this work. With the power of her arms and shoulders alone she brought the music from the throat of the bell. Every stroke was a shock that racked her body terribly. She dared not leave the rope for a minute while she called from the door for help.

She hoped the s.e.xton would come, wondering who was so steadily pulling the bell rope. Stroke followed stroke. The axle shrieked-and she could have done the same with pain had she not set her teeth in her lip and put forth every atom of will power she possessed to keep to the work and stifle her agony.

On and on, till her brain swam, and her breath came chokingly from her lungs. Once she missed the stroke, her strength seeming to desert her for the moment. Frantically she clawed at the rope again and pulled down on it with renewed desperation.

"I will! I will!" she gasped.

Why? For the sake of the little child that she, too, had learned to love?

Perhaps. And, yet, it was not the flowerlike face of little Carolyn May that Amanda Parlow saw continually before her eyes as she tugged on the bell rope with bleeding hands.

Going out into the storm, out on the treacherous ice, was a figure that she had watched during the long years from behind the curtains of her front room. It was the most familiar figure in the world to her.

She had seen it change from a youthful, willowy shape to a solid, substantial, middle-aged figure during these years. She had seen it aging before its time. No wonder she could visualise it now so plainly out there on the ice.

"Joe! Joe!" she muttered each time that she bore down on the bell rope, and the iron tongue shouted the word for her, far across the snow-blotted cove.

CHAPTER XXII-CHET GORMLEY'S AMBITION

Carolyn May was not the first of the trio caught out on the moving ice to be frightened. Perhaps because she had such unbounded faith in the good intentions of everybody towards her, the child could not imagine anything really hurting her.

That is, excepting wildcats. Carolyn May was pretty well convinced that they did not like little girls.

"Oh, isn't this fun!" she crowed, bending her head before the beating of the storm. "Do hang on, Princey."

But Prince could not hang on so well, now that they faced the wind. He slipped off the sled twice, and that delayed them. Under his skates, Chet could feel the ice heave, while the resonant cracks followed each other like a file-fire of musketry.

"Goodness me!" gasped Carolyn May, "the ice seems to be going all to pieces, Chet. I hope it won't till we get back to the sh.o.r.e."

"I'm hopin' that, too," returned the boy.

He had quickly realised that they were in peril, but he would not let Carolyn May see that he was frightened-no, indeed! But he had to give up trying to make Prince sit on the sled.

"He'll just have to run. He can do it in this snow," said Chet. "I declare! he can get along better than I can. I guess I'd better take off my skates."

"I'll hold 'em for you, Chet," Carolyn May cried, laughing. "My! doesn't this snow slap you hard?"

The boy unstrapped the skates swiftly. He had a very good reason for removing them. If the ice was breaking up into floes, he might skate right off into the water, being unable to halt quickly enough, if on the steel runners.

He now plodded on, head down, dragging the sled and the child, with Prince slipping and scratching along beside them.

Suddenly he came to open water. It was so broad a channel that he could not hope to leap it; and, of course, he could not get the sled and the little girl across.

"My!" cried Carolyn May, "that place wasn't here when we came out, was it, Chet? It must have just come here."

"I don't think it was here before," admitted the boy.

"Or maybe you're not going back the way you came?" suggested the little girl. "Are you sure you're going the right way home?"

Chet really was doubtful of his direction. He believed that the wind was blowing directly down the cove, but it might have shifted. The thickly falling snow blinded and confused him.

Suddenly a sound reached their ears that startled both; it even made Prince p.r.i.c.k up his ears and listen. Then the dog sat up on his haunches and began to howl.

"Oh, _don't_, Prince!" gasped Carolyn May. "Who ever told you you could sing, just because you hear a church bell ringing?"

"That's the chapel bell!" cried Chet Gormley. "Now I'm sure I'm right.

But we must get around this open patch of water."

He set off along the edge of the open water, which looked black and angry. The ice groaned and cracked in a threatening way. He was not sure whether the floe they were on had completely broken away from the great ma.s.s of ice in the cove and was already drifting out into the lake or not.

Haste, however, he knew was imperative. The tolling of the chapel bell coming faintly down the wind, Chet drew the sled swiftly along the edge of the opening, the dog trotting along beside them, whining. Prince plainly did not approve of this.

"Here it is!" shouted the boy in sudden joy. "Now we'll be all right, Car'lyn May!"

"Oh, I'm so glad, Chet," said the little girl. "For I'm getting real cold, and this snow makes me all wet."

Chet was tempted to take off his coat and put it about her. But the coat was thin, and he felt that it was already soaked through. It would not do her any material good.

"Keep up your heart, Car'lyn May," he begged. "I guess we'll get through all right now."