Billy Topsail & Company: A Story for Boys

“Meanwhile I had rested my arms on the edge, which then crumbled no more; but I was helpless to save myself, for the current had sucked my legs under the ice, and now held them securely there, sweeping them from side to side, all the while tugging as if to wrench me from my hold. The most I could do was to resist the pull, to grit my teeth and cling to the advantage I had. It was for John to make the rescue.

“There was an ominous crack from John’s direction. When I turned my eyes to look he was lying still. Then I saw him wriggle out of danger, backing away like a crab.

“‘John!’ I screamed.

“The appeal seemed not to move him. He continued to wriggle from me. When he came to solid ice he took to his heels. I caught sight of him as he climbed the bank, and kept my eyes upon him until he disappeared over the crest. He had left me without a word.

“The water was cold and swift, and the strength of my arms and back was wearing out. The current kept tugging, and I realized, loath as I was to admit it, that half an hour would find me slipping under the ice. It was a grave mistake to admit it; for at once fancy began to paint ugly pictures for me, and the probabilities, as it presented them, soon flustered me almost beyond recovery.

“‘I was chest-high out of the water,’ I told myself. ‘Chest-high! Now my chin is within four inches of the ice. I’ve lost three inches. I’m lost!’

“With that I tried to release my feet from the clutch of the current, to kick myself back to an upright position, to lift myself out. It was all worse than vain. The water was running so swiftly that it dangled my legs as it willed, and the rotten ice momentarily threatened to let me through.

“I lost a full inch of position. So I settled myself to wait for what might come, determined to yield nothing through terror or despair. My eyes were fixed stupidly upon the bend in the river, far down, where a spruce-clothed bluff was melting with the dusk.

“What with the cold and the drain upon my physical strength, it may be that my mind was a blank when relief came. At any rate, it seemed to have been an infinitely long time in coming; and it was with a shock that John’s words restored me to a vivid consciousness of my situation.

“‘Catch hold!’ said he.

“He had crawled near me, although I had not known of his approach, and he was thrusting towards me the end of a long pole, which he had cut in the bush. It was long, but not long enough. I reached for it, but my hand came three feet short of grasping it.

“John grunted and crept nearer. Still it was beyond me, and he dared venture no farther. He withdrew the pole; then he crept back and unfastened his belt. Working deliberately but swiftly, he bound the belt to the end of the pole, and came out again. He cast the belt within reach, as a fisherman casts a line. I caught it, clutched it, and was hauled from my predicament by main strength.

“‘John,’ I said, as we drew near to the half-way cabin, ‘I know your blood, and it’s all very well to be careful not to say too much; but there’s such a thing as saying too little. Why didn’t you tell me where you were going when you started for that pole?’

“‘Huh!’ said John, as if his faithfulness to me in every fortune were quite beyond suspicion.

“‘Yes, I know,’ I insisted, ‘but a word or two would have saved me a deal of uneasiness.’

“‘Huh!’ said he.”

CHAPTER XXI

In Which a Bearer of Tidings Finds Himself In Peril of His Life On a Ledge of Ice Above a Roaring Rapid

“We passed that night at the cabin, where a roaring fire warmed me and dried my clothes,” David’s friend continued. “My packet of letters was safe and dry, so I slept in peace, and we were both as chirpy as sparrows when we set out the next morning. It was a clear, still day, with the sun falling warmly upon us.

“Our way now led through the bush for mile after mile–little hills and stony ground and swamp-land. By noon we were wet to the knees; but this circumstance was then too insignificant for remark, although later it gave me the narrowest chance for life that ever came within my experience.

“We made Swift Rapids late in the afternoon, when the sun was low and a frosty wind was freezing the pools by the way. The post at Little Lake lay not more than three miles beyond the foot of the rapids, and when the swish and roar of water first fell upon our ears we hallooed most joyfully, for it seemed to us that we had come within reaching distance of our destination.

“‘No,’ said John, when we stood on the shore of the river.

“‘I think we can,’ said I.

“‘No,’ he repeated.

“The rapids were clear of ice, which had broken from the quiet water above the verge of the descent, and now lay heaped up from shore to shore, where the current subsided at the foot. The water was most turbulent–swirling, shooting, foaming over great boulders. It went rushing between two high cliffs, foaming to the very feet of them, where not an inch of bank was showing. At first glance it was no thoroughfare; but the only alternative was to go round the mountain, as my father had said, and I had no fancy to lengthen my journey by four hours, so I searched the shore carefully for a passage.

“The face of the cliff was such that we could make our way one hundred yards down-stream. It was just beyond that point that the difficulty lay. The rock jutted into the river, and rose sheer from it; neither foothold nor handhold was offered. But beyond, as I knew, it would be easy enough to clamber along the cliff, which was shelving and broken, and so, at last, come to the trail again.

“‘There’s the trouble, John,’ said I, pointing to the jutting rock. ‘If we can get round that, we can go the rest of the way without any difficulty.’

“‘No go,’ said John. ‘Come.’

“He jerked his head towards the bush, but I was not to be easily persuaded.

“‘We’ll go down and look at that place,’ I replied. ‘There may be a way.’

“There was a way, a clear, easy way, requiring no more than a bit of nerve to pass over it, and I congratulated myself upon persisting to its discovery. The path was by a stout ledge of ice, adhering to the cliff and projecting out from it for about eighteen inches. The river had fallen. This ledge had been formed when it was at its highest, and when the water had subsided the ice had been left sticking to the rock. The ledge was like the rim of ice that adheres to a tub when a bucketful of freezing water has been taken out.

“I clambered down to it, sounded it, and found it solid. Moreover, it seemed to lead all the way round, broadening and narrowing as it went, but wide enough in every part. I was sure-footed and unafraid, so at once I determined to essay the passage. ‘I am going to try it!’ I called to John, who was clinging to the cliff some yards behind and above me. ‘Don’t follow until I call you.’

“‘Look out!’ said he.

“‘Oh, it’s all right,’ I said, confidently.

“I turned my back to the rock and moved out, stepping sidewise. It was not difficult until I came to a point where the cliff is overhanging–it may be a space of twelve feet or less; then I had to stoop, and the awkward position made my situation precarious in the extreme, for the rock seemed all the while bent on thrusting me off.

“The river was roaring past. Below me the water was breaking over a great rock, whence it shot, swift and strong, against a boulder which rose above it. I could hear the hiss and swish and thunder of it; and had I been less confident in my foothold, I might then and there have been hopelessly unnerved. There was no mercy in those seething rapids.

“‘A fall would be the end of me,’ I thought; ‘but I will not fall.’

“Fall I did, however, and that suddenly, just after I had rounded the point and was hidden from John’s sight. The cold of the late afternoon had frozen my boots stiff; they had been soaked in the swamp-lands, and the water was now all turned to ice.

“My soles were slippery and my feet were awkwardly managed. I slipped.

“My feet shot from under me. A flash of terror went through me. Then I found myself lying on my hip, on the edge of the shelf with my legs dangling over the rapids, my shoulder pressing the cliff, my hands flat on the ice, and my arms sustaining nearly the whole weight of my body.

“At that instant I heard a thud and a splash, as of something striking the water, and turning my eyes, I perceived that a section of the snow ledge had fallen from the cliff. It was not large, but it was between John and me, and the space effectually shut him off from my assistance.

“My problem was to get to my feet again. But how? The first effort persuaded me that it was impossible. My shoulder was against the cliff. When I attempted to raise myself to a seat on the ledge I succeeded only in pressing my shoulder more firmly against the rock. Wriggle as I would, the wall behind kept me where I was. I could not gain an inch. I needed no more, for that would have relieved my arms by throwing more of my weight upon my hips.

“I was in the position of a boy trying to draw himself to a seat on a window-sill, with the difference that my heels were of no help to me, for they were dangling in space. My arms were fast tiring out. The inch I needed for relief was past gaining, and it seemed to me then that in a moment my arms would fail me, and I should slip off into the river.

“‘Better go now,’ I thought, ‘before my arms are worn out altogether. I’ll need them for swimming.’

“But a glance down the river assured me that my chance in the rapids would be of the smallest. Not only was the water swift and turbulent, but it ran against the barrier of ice at the foot of the rapids, and it was evident that it would suck me under, once it got me there.

“Nor was there any hope in John’s presence. I had told him to stay where he was until I called; and, to be sure, in that spot would he stay. I might call now. But to what purpose? He could do nothing to help me. He would come to the gap in the ledge, and from there peep sympathetically at me. Indeed, he might reach a pole to me, as he had done on the day before, but my hands were fully occupied, and I could not grasp it. So I put John out of my mind,–for even in the experience of the previous day I had not yet learned my lesson,–and determined to follow the only course which lay open to me, desperate though it was.

“‘I’ll turn on my stomach,’ I thought, ‘and try to get to my knees on the ledge.’

“I accomplished the turn, but in the act I so nearly lost my hold that I lost my head, and there was a gasping lapse of time before I recovered my calm.

“In this change I gained nothing. When I tried to get to my knees I butted my head against the overhanging rock, nor could I lift my foot to the ice and roll over on my side, for the ledge was far too narrow for that. I had altered my position, but I had accomplished no change in my situation. It was impossible for me to rest more of my weight upon my breast than my hips had borne. My weakening arms still had to sustain it, and the river was going its swirling way below me, just as it had gone in the beginning. I had not helped myself at all.

“There was nothing for it, I thought, but to commit myself to the river and make as gallant a fight for life as I could. So at last I called John, that he might carry our tidings to their destination and return to Fort Red Wing with news of a sadly different kind.