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.
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