The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp Part 29

He was kneeling in his queer craft, and the girls could now see that it was made for just such work as this. It was a small punt, capable of being rowed or paddled. And to enable it to slide over the ice two strips of iron, for runners, extended along the bottom from stem to stern, just under the lower and outer edges of the boat's sides. In other words it was a combined sled and boat. It was a type much used by muskrat-hunters who have to seek their quarry on flooded meadows that often freeze over uncertainly.

"Here you go!" shouted the man. "Make this line fast to the forward part of your boat. How are the runners; well sunk in?"

"Yes!" answered Betty, glancing to make sure. The steel runners of the cross-piece of the craft, as well as the steering plates in the rear, had, because of the fact that the boat had been stationary so long, sunk deep into the soft ice. The _Spider_ was firmly anch.o.r.ed.

"The rope will hold better on your craft, than on the ice itself," the man explained after he had thrown it. "Have you made it fast?"

"Yes!" cried Mollie, who had a.s.sisted Betty in catching the line, and taking a couple of turns about a strong cleat.

"Oh, do please hurry and--and save us!" panted Grace.

"I will, miss. Don't be skeered," said their rescuer kindly. The girls could see that he was a burly lumberman, but no one they had ever met before, as far as any of them could remember.

"I'll have you ash.o.r.e soon," he added. "I'll make as good time back as I can, though it's ticklish work, for the ice is going out fast. It's early for it, too, and the river will freeze up again bad. But don't worry. Your floe will hold until I get you all ash.o.r.e. Just sit tight, and don't worry!"

"But we--we can't help it," half whispered Amy.

The man, having tossed the rope which Betty and Mollie secured, now arranged the coils in the bottom of his boat so that it would pay out without tangling.

"I was just pa.s.sing when I saw your pickle," he told them. "Lucky I had the rope with me, and I knew old Muskrat Ike must have his punt hid along the bank somewhere. I routed it out and here I am. Now I'm off.

Keep up your spirits!" he called with a smile.

With two short, iron shod and pointed poles he shoved his boat around and off the floe where he had halted. Into the water plunged the queer craft, and then the man paddled. He slid the shelving, pointed prow out on another ice cake and thus, alternately progressing, he neared the sh.o.r.e.

As he approached it, narrowly watched by the girls, who cast occasional glances at their own floe, Betty uttered a cry.

"There are the boys!"

Three figures could be seen hurrying down to the edge of the ice-filled river, and it needed but a glance to show that they were Will, Frank and Allen.

In another minute or two the lumberman, in his queer boat, had reached the sh.o.r.e. Out he leaped, and shoving his punt to one side he began hauling on the rope that was fast to the ice-anch.o.r.ed auto craft, the rope forming a slender bridge to the land. Slowly the ice-floe began to approach the sh.o.r.e, shoving the lesser cakes aside.

But now a new danger presented itself. As long as the big floe had gone down with the current it had not been struck hard by other chunks of ice, since all were moving at the same rate of speed. Now, as the big floe was hauled cross-ways to the current, other cakes collided with it, breaking off large chunks.

"There won't be anything left when we get ash.o.r.e," cried Grace. "We're going to pieces fast!"

"Don't get excited!" advised Mollie. "We'll be all right," but she watched with eager eyes the progress they were making, and the ever-decreasing size of their floe.

"The boys are going to help him!" cried Mollie. "Now we will move faster."

Will and the others, reaching the side of the lumberman, and seeing his plan, laid hold of the rope with him, and hauled with all their might.

Then, indeed, the floe containing the ice boat did move toward sh.o.r.e more quickly. And to such good purpose did the rescuers haul that, in a short time, the cake grounded in shallow water, with one point so near sh.o.r.e that the girls could leap across the intervening water safely.

And it was only just in time, for when Betty, who insisted on being the last to leave the boat, landed, the cake split in half, and the _Spider_ was partly submerged.

"What luck!" cried Will, as he clasped his sister's hand. "Whatever possessed you girls to go out on a day like this?"

"Never mind asking questions now," replied Grace half-hysterically.

"We're safe! Better get your boat ash.o.r.e boys."

"That's good advice," agreed Allen, and with the help of the lumberman the _Spider_ was hauled ash.o.r.e, not in the least damaged. The girls were beginning to recover their nerves now, though they were a trifle shaky.

"Let's get back to the cabin!" cried Grace. "Oh, I'll never go ice boating again."

"Not when the ice is like it was to-day," commented her brother.

"Franklin says he warned you."

"Oh, well, we didn't think we'd go so far," said Mollie. "We must thank that man. Where is he?"

The lumberman, having replaced the queer punt where he had found it, was walking away, when Betty, running after him, cried:

"Oh, won't you let us know who you are? We want to thank you, and----"

"Oh that's all right," he said, with rough good-nature. "It was all in the day's work. I've done the same thing before."

"But won't--won't you tell us who you are?" asked Allen.

"It doesn't matter. I'm a stranger around here, and I don't expect to stay. I'll be getting along," and he took off his fur cap and bowed. It was so evident that he did not want to disclose this ident.i.ty that the boys did not press him.

"But we can't thank you enough," said Mollie.

"The sight of your pretty faces is enough," he replied gallantly, and with just the trace of a brogue. He smiled genially, bowed again and tramped off through the snow.

"How odd!" exclaimed Grace.

"Maybe he's one of the Jallow lumbermen, and didn't want it known that he had done the Ford family a favor," suggested Will.

"Silly!" remarked his sister.

"Well, there's something queer about him anyhow," insisted Will. "Say, but you girls were in a pickle, all right."

"It was a whole jar full--with some olives thrown in," remarked Betty.

"Oh, I was so frightened!"

"You didn't show it, my dear," spoke Amy. "You were very brave!"

"Well, some one had to be. Not that you all weren't!" said Betty quickly.

"When we got back, and Franklin said you'd gone off in the boat, and we saw the ice breaking up, we were wild about you," spoke Will. "We started out to trace you, keeping on the high ground to see you quicker.

But the lumberman beat us to it."

"Oh, I don't know what we should have done without him," declared Mollie.

"Well, let's get back to the cabin," voiced Will. "My feet are wet."

"And we'll all feel better for a cup of tea," added Mollie.

Behold them then, a little later, seated about a cosy fire, sipping tea, coffee or chocolate, according to their fancies, Mrs. Franklin having insisted on serving them. Soon the danger was but a poignant memory.