Spring, smiting with soft, warm hands, had come like a miracle, and now
lingered for a dreamy spell before bursting into full-blown summer.
The snow had left the bottoms and valleys and nestled only on the north
slopes of the ice-scarred ridges. The glacial drip was already in
evidence, and every creek in roaring spate. Each day the sun rose
earlier and stayed later. It was now chill day by three o'clock and
mellow twilight at nine. Soon a golden circle would be drawn around
the sky, and deep midnight become bright as high noon. The willows and
aspens had long since budded, and were now decking themselves in
liveries of fresh young green, and the sap was rising in the pines.
Mother nature had heaved her waking sigh and gone about her brief
business. Crickets sang of nights in the stilly cabins, and in the
sunshine mosquitoes crept from out hollow logs and snug crevices among
the rocks,--big, noisy, harmless fellows, that had procreated the year
gone, lain frozen through the winter, and were now rejuvenated to buzz
through swift senility to second death. All sorts of creeping,
crawling, fluttering life came forth from the warming earth and
hastened to mature, reproduce, and cease. Just a breath of balmy air,
and then the long cold frost again--ah! they knew it well and lost no
time. Sand martins were driving their ancient tunnels into the soft
clay banks, and robins singing on the spruce-garbed islands. Overhead
the woodpecker knocked insistently, and in the forest depths the
partridge boom-boomed and strutted in virile glory.
But in all this nervous haste the Yukon took no part. For many a
thousand miles it lay cold, unsmiling, dead. Wild fowl, driving up
from the south in wind-jamming wedges, halted, looked vainly for open
water, and quested dauntlessly on into the north. From bank to bank
stretched the savage ice. Here and there the water burst through and
flooded over, but in the chill nights froze solidly as ever. Tradition
has it that of old time the Yukon lay unbroken through three long
summers, and on the face of it there be traditions less easy of belief.
So summer waited for open water, and the tardy Yukon took to stretching
of days and cracking its stiff joints. Now an air-hole ate into the
ice, and ate and ate; or a fissure formed, and grew, and failed to
freeze again. Then the ice ripped from the shore and uprose bodily a
yard. But still the river was loth to loose its grip. It was a slow
travail, and man, used to nursing nature with pigmy skill, able to
burst waterspouts and harness waterfalls, could avail nothing against
the billions of frigid tons which refused to run down the hill to
Bering Sea.
On Split-up Island all were ready for the break-up. Waterways have
ever been first highways, and the Yukon was the sole highway in all the
land. So those bound up-river pitched their poling-boats and shod
their poles with iron, and those bound down caulked their scows and
barges and shaped spare sweeps with axe and drawing-knife. Jacob Welse
loafed and joyed in the utter cessation from work, and Frona joyed with
him in that it was good. But Baron Courbertin was in a fever at the
delay. His hot blood grew riotous after the long hibernation, and the
warm sunshine dazzled him with warmer fancies.
"Oh! Oh! It will never break! Never!" And he stood gazing at the
surly ice and raining politely phrased anathema upon it. "It is a
conspiracy, poor La Bijou, a conspiracy!" He caressed La Bijou like it
were a horse, for so he had christened the glistening Peterborough
canoe.
Frona and St. Vincent laughed and preached him the gospel of patience,
which he proceeded to tuck away into the deepest abysses of perdition
till interrupted by Jacob Welse.
"Look, Courbertin! Over there, south of the bluff. Do you make out
anything? Moving?"
"Yes; a dog."
"It moves too slowly for a dog. Frona, get the glasses."
Courbertin and St. Vincent sprang after them, but the latter knew their
abiding-place and returned triumphant. Jacob Welse put the binoculars
to his eyes and gazed steadily across the river. It was a sheer mile
from the island to the farther bank, and the sunglare on the ice was a
sore task to the vision.
"It is a man." He passed the glasses to the Baron and strained
absently with his naked eyes. "And something is up."
"He creeps!" the baron exclaimed. "The man creeps, he crawls, on hand
and knee! Look! See!" He thrust the glasses tremblingly into Frona's
hands.
Looking across the void of shimmering white, it was difficult to
discern a dark object of such size when dimly outlined against an
equally dark background of brush and earth. But Frona could make the
man out with fair distinctness; and as she grew accustomed to the
strain she could distinguish each movement, and especially so when he
came to a wind-thrown pine. Sue watched painfully. Twice, after
tortuous effort, squirming and twisting, he failed in breasting the big
trunk, and on the third attempt, after infinite exertion, he cleared it
only to topple helplessly forward and fall on his face in the tangled
undergrowth.
"It is a man." She turned the glasses over to St. Vincent. "And he is
crawling feebly. He fell just then this side of the log."
"Does he move?" Jacob Welse asked, and, on a shake of St. Vincent's
head, brought his rifle from the tent.
He fired six shots skyward in rapid succession. "He moves!" The
correspondent followed him closely. "He is crawling to the bank. Ah!
. . . No; one moment . . . Yes! He lies on the ground and raises his
hat, or something, on a stick. He is waving it." (Jacob Welse fired
six more shots.) "He waves again. Now he has dropped it and lies
quite still."
All three looked inquiringly to Jacob Welse.
He shrugged his shoulders. "How should I know? A white man or an
Indian; starvation most likely, or else he is injured."
"But he may be dying," Frona pleaded, as though her father, who had
done most things, could do all things.
"We can do nothing."
"Ah! Terrible! terrible!" The baron wrung his hands. "Before our
very eyes, and we can do nothing! No!" he exclaimed, with swift
resolution, "it shall not be! I will cross the ice!"
He would have started precipitately down the bank had not Jacob Welse
caught his arm.
"Not such a rush, baron. Keep your head."
"But--"
"But nothing. Does the man want food, or medicine, or what? Wait a
moment. We will try it together."
"Count me in," St. Vincent volunteered promptly, and Frona's eyes
sparkled.
While she made up a bundle of food in the tent, the men provided and
rigged themselves with sixty or seventy feet of light rope. Jacob
Welse and St. Vincent made themselves fast to it at either end, and the
baron in the middle. He claimed the food as his portion, and strapped
it to his broad shoulders. Frona watched their progress from the bank.
The first hundred yards were easy going, but she noticed at once the
change when they had passed the limit of the fairly solid shore-ice.
Her father led sturdily, feeling ahead and to the side with his staff
and changing direction continually.
St. Vincent, at the rear of the extended line, was the first to go
through, but he fell with the pole thrust deftly across the opening and
resting on the ice. His head did not go under, though the current
sucked powerfully, and the two men dragged him out after a sharp pull.
Frona saw them consult together for a minute, with much pointing and
gesticulating on the part of the baron, and then St. Vincent detach
himself and turn shoreward.
"Br-r-r-r," he shivered, coming up the bank to her. "It's impossible."
"But why didn't they come in?" she asked, a slight note of displeasure
manifest in her voice.
"Said they were going to make one more try, first. That Courbertin is
hot-headed, you know."
"And my father just as bull-headed," she smiled. "But hadn't you
better change? There are spare things in the tent."
"Oh, no." He threw himself down beside her. "It's warm in the sun."
For an hour they watched the two men, who had become mere specks of
black in the distance; for they had managed to gain the middle of the
river and at the same time had worked nearly a mile up-stream. Frona
followed them closely with the glasses, though often they were lost to
sight behind the ice-ridges.
"It was unfair of them," she heard St. Vincent complain, "to say they
were only going to have one more try. Otherwise I should not have
turned back. Yet they can't make it--absolutely impossible."
"Yes . . . No . . . Yes! They're turning back," she announced. "But
listen! What is that?"
A hoarse rumble, like distant thunder, rose from the midst of the ice.
She sprang to her feet. "Gregory, the river can't be breaking!"
"No, no; surely not. See, it is gone." The noise which had come from
above had died away downstream.
"But there! There!"
Another rumble, hoarser and more ominous than before, lifted itself and
hushed the robins and the squirrels. When abreast of them, it sounded
like a railroad train on a distant trestle. A third rumble, which
approached a roar and was of greater duration, began from above and
passed by.
"Oh, why don't they hurry!"
The two specks had stopped, evidently in conversation. She ran the
glasses hastily up and down the river. Though another roar had risen,
she could make out no commotion. The ice lay still and motionless.
The robins resumed their singing, and the squirrels were chattering
with spiteful glee.
"Don't fear, Frona." St. Vincent put his arm about her protectingly.
"If there is any danger, they know it better than we, and they are
taking their time."
"I never saw a big river break up," she confessed, and resigned herself
to the waiting.
The roars rose and fell sporadically, but there were no other signs of
disruption, and gradually the two men, with frequent duckings, worked
inshore. The water was streaming from them and they were shivering
severely as they came up the bank.
"At last!" Frona had both her father's hands in hers. "I thought you
would never come back."
"There, there. Run and get dinner," Jacob Welse laughed. "There was
no danger."
"But what was it?"
"Stewart River's broken and sending its ice down under the Yukon ice.
We could hear the grinding plainly out there."
"Ah! And it was terrible! terrible!" cried the baron. "And that poor,
poor man, we cannot save him!"
"Yes, we can. We'll have a try with the dogs after dinner. Hurry,
Frona."
But the dogs were a failure. Jacob Welse picked out the leaders as the
more intelligent, and with grub-packs on them drove them out from the
bank. They could not grasp what was demanded of them. Whenever they
tried to return they were driven back with sticks and clods and
imprecations. This only bewildered them, and they retreated out of
range, whence they raised their wet, cold paws and whined pitifully to
the shore.
"If they could only make it once, they would understand, and then it
would go like clock-work. Ah! Would you? Go on! Chook, Miriam!
Chook! The thing is to get the first one across."
Jacob Welse finally succeeded in getting Miriam, lead-dog to Frona's
team, to take the trail left by him and the baron. The dog went on
bravely, scrambling over, floundering through, and sometimes swimming;
but when she had gained the farthest point reached by them, she sat
down helplessly. Later on, she cut back to the shore at a tangent,
landing on the deserted island above; and an hour afterwards trotted
into camp minus the grub-pack. Then the two dogs, hovering just out of
range, compromised matters by devouring each other's burdens; after
which the attempt was given over and they were called in.
During the afternoon the noise increased in frequency, and by nightfall
was continuous, but by morning it had ceased utterly. The river had
risen eight feet, and in many places was running over its crust. Much
crackling and splitting were going on, and fissures leaping into life
and multiplying in all directions.
"The under-tow ice has jammed below among the islands," Jacob Welse
explained. "That's what caused the rise. Then, again, it has jammed
at the mouth of the Stewart and is backing up. When that breaks
through, it will go down underneath and stick on the lower jam."
"And then? and then?" The baron exulted.
"La Bijou will swim again."
As the light grew stronger, they searched for the man across the river.
He had not moved, but in response to their rifle-shots waved feebly.
"Nothing for it till the river breaks, baron, and then a dash with La
Bijou. St. Vincent, you had better bring your blankets up and sleep
here to-night. We'll need three paddles, and I think we can get
McPherson."
"No need," the correspondent hastened to reply. "The back-channel is
like adamant, and I'll be up by daybreak."
"But I? Why not?" Baron Courbertin demanded. Frona laughed.
"Remember, we haven't given you your first lessons yet."
"And there'll hardly be time to-morrow," Jacob Welse added. "When she
goes, she goes with a rush. St. Vincent, McPherson, and I will have to
make the crew, I'm afraid. Sorry, baron. Stay with us another year
and you'll be fit."
But Baron Courbertin was inconsolable, and sulked for a full half-hour.