Balancing gracefully, like a circus-rider, the Frenchman
whirled away along the rim of the bank. Fifty precarious feet he rode,
his mount becoming more unstable every instant, and he leaped neatly to
the shore. He came back laughing, and received for his pains two or
three of the choicest phrases Jacob Welse could select from the
essentially masculine portion of his vocabulary.
"And for why?" Courbertin demanded, stung to the quick.
"For why?" Jacob Welse mimicked wrathfully, pointing into the sleek
stream sliding by.
A great cake had driven its nose into the bed of the river thirty feet
below and was struggling to up-end. All the frigid flood behind
crinkled and bent back like so much paper. Then the stalled cake
turned completely over and thrust its muddy nose skyward. But the
squeeze caught it, while cake mounted cake at its back, and its fifty
feet of muck and gouge were hurled into the air. It crashed upon the
moving mass beneath, and flying fragments landed at the feet of those
that watched. Caught broadside in a chaos of pressures, it crumbled
into scattered pieces and disappeared.
"God!" The baron spoke the word reverently and with awe.
Frona caught his hand on the one side and her father's on the other.
The ice was now leaping past in feverish haste. Somewhere below a
heavy cake butted into the bank, and the ground swayed under their
feet.
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