It looks
like a woman. And there's nobody to help."
CHAPTER XII.
IN THE ICE.
"Help! help!" shouted the four triphammers, bursting in like a magnified
echo of the boy's last word.
"Help! help!" all the humming wheels and drums repeated more
plaintively.
Wade made for the river.
This was the moment all his manhood had been training and saving for.
For this he had kept sound and brave from his youth up.
As he ran, he felt that the only chance of instant help was in that
queer little bowl-shaped skiff of the "Ambuster."
He had never been conscious that he had observed it; but the image
had lain latent in his mind, biding its time. It might be ten, twenty
precious moments before another boat could be found. This one was on the
spot to do its duty at once.
"Somebody carried off,--perhaps a woman," Wade thought. "Not--No, she
would not neglect my warning! Whoever it is, we must save her from this
dreadful death!"
He sprang on board the little steamboat. She was swaying uneasily at her
moorings, as the ice crowded along and hammered against her stem. Wade
stared from her deck down the river, with all his life at his eyes.
More than a mile away, below the hemlock-crested point, was the dark
object Perry had seen, still stirring along the edges of the floating
ice. A broad avenue of leaden-green water wrinkled by the cold wind
separated the field where this figure was moving from the shore.
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