CHAPTER XXIV
"Awake! You dreamers, wake!"
Frona was out of her sleeping-furs at Del Bishop's first call; but ere
she had slipped a skirt on and bare feet into moccasins, her father,
beyond the blanket-curtain, had thrown back the flaps of the tent and
stumbled out.
The river was up. In the chill gray light she could see the ice
rubbing softly against the very crest of the bank; it even topped it in
places, and the huge cakes worked inshore many feet. A hundred yards
out the white field merged into the dim dawn and the gray sky. Subdued
splits and splutters whispered from out the obscureness, and a gentle
grinding could be heard.
"When will it go?" she asked of Del.
"Not a bit too lively for us. See there!" He pointed with his toe to
the water lapping out from under the ice and creeping greedily towards
them. "A foot rise every ten minutes."
"Danger?" he scoffed. "Not on your life. It's got to go. Them
islands"--waving his hand indefinitely down river--"can't hold up under
more pressure. If they don't let go the ice, the ice'll scour them
clean out of the bed of the Yukon. Sure! But I've got to be chasin'
back. Lower ground down our way. Fifteen inches on the cabin floor,
and McPherson and Corliss hustlin' perishables into the bunks."
"Tell McPherson to be ready for a call," Jacob Welse shouted after him.
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