"
"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.
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