"Ay, that it will," came the answer. "Below Nulato I saw Bixbie Island
swept clean as my old mother's kitchen floor."
The men came hastily together about Frona.
"This won't do. We've got to carry them over to your shack, Corliss."
As he spoke, Jacob Welse clambered nimbly up the cabin and gazed down
at the big barrier. "Where's McPherson?" he asked.
"Petrified astride the ridge-pole this last hour."
Jacob Welse waved his arm. "It's breaking! There she goes!"
"No kitchen floor this time. Bill, with my respects to your old
woman," called he of the tobacco.
"Ay," answered the imperturbable Bill.
The whole river seemed to pick itself up and start down the stream.
With the increasing motion the ice-wall broke in a hundred places, and
from up and down the shore came the rending and crashing of uprooted
trees.
Corliss and Bishop laid hold of Bill and started off to McPherson's,
and Jacob Welse and the baron were just sliding his mate over the
eaves, when a huge block of ice rammed in and smote the cabin squarely.
Frona saw it, and cried a warning, but the tiered logs were overthrown
like a house of cards. She saw Courbertin and the sick man hurled
clear of the wreckage, and her father go down with it. She sprang to
the spot, but he did not rise. She pulled at him to get his mouth
above water, but at full stretch his head, barely showed.
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