The Rangers; or, The Tory's Daughter / A Tale Illustrative of the Revolutionary History of Vermont and the Northern Campaign of 1777

by Daniel P. Thompson

“Well, that is an echo, which, strangely enough, we can hear when we can't the original sound, and which is made by the striking up there of the roar of the river above us; that of course must be open, having already broken up and got the ice in motion somewhere. But hark again! Now, don't you hear that rumbling noise? Can't you, now, both hear and feel those quick, irregular, deep, jarring sounds?”

“Yes, plainly—very plainly, now—you are right. Sure enough, the ice in the river above us is on the move!” responded all, with excited looks.

“To be sure it is; and from the noise it makes, it must be coming down upon us with the speed of a race-horse! Let us all to the hills, boys, where we can get a fair view of the spectacle.”

The company, accordingly, now all ran to gain the top of a neighboring swell, which commanded a view of West River for a long distance up the stream, as well as one of a considerable reach of the more distant Connecticut, both of which views were obstructed, at the spot they had just left, by a point of woods and turn in the river in the former instance, and by intervening hills in the latter.

Among the many wild and imposing exhibitions of nature, peculiar to the mountainous regions of our northern clime, there is no one, perhaps, of more fearful magnificence, than that which is sometimes presented in the breaking up of one of our large rivers by a winter flood; when the ice, in its full strength, enormous thickness, and rock-like solidity, is rent asunder, with loud, crashing explosions, and hurled up into ragged mountains, and borne onward before the raging torrent with inconceivable force and frightful velocity, spreading devastation along the banks in its course, and sweeping away the strongest fabrics of human power which stand opposed to its progress, like the feeble weeds that disappear from the path of a tornado.

Such a spectacle, as they reached their proposed stand, now burst on the view of the astonished travellers. As far as the eye could reach upwards along the windings of the stream, the whole channel was filled with the mighty mass of ice, driving down towards them with fearful rapidity, and tumbling, crashing, grinding, and forcing its way, as it came, with collisions that shook the surrounding forest, and with the din and tumult of an army of chariots rushing together in battle. Here, tall trees on the bank were beaten down and overwhelmed, or, wrenched off at the roots and thrown upwards, were whirled along on the top of the rushing volume, like feathers on the tossing wave. There, the changing mass was seen swelling up into mountain-like elevations, to roll onward a while, and, then gradually sinking away, be succeeded by another in another form; while, with resistless front, the whole immense moving body drove steadily on, ploughing and rending its way into the unbroken sheet of ice before it, which burst, divided, and was borne down beneath the boiling flood, or hurled upwards into the air, with a noise sometimes resembling the sounds of exploding muskets, and sometimes the crash of falling towers.

But the noise of another and similar commotion in an opposite direction, now attracted their attention, They turned, and their eyes were greeted with a scene, which, though less startling from its distance, yet even surpassed, in picturesque grandeur, the one they had just been witnessing. Through the whole visible reach of the Connecticut, a long, white, glittering column of ice, with its ridgy and bristling top towering high above the adjacent banks, was sweeping by and onward, like the serried lines of an army advancing to the charge; while the broad valley around even back to the summits of the far-off hills, was resounding with the deafening din that rose from the extended line of the booming avalanche, with the deep rumblings of an earthquake mingled with the tumultuous roar of an approaching tempest.

The attention of the company, however, was now drawn from this magnificent display of the power of the elements, by an object of more immediate interest to their feelings. This was an open double sleigh, approaching, on the opposite side of the river, towards the place at which they had just crossed over, in the manner we have described. The mountain mass of ice that was still forcing its way down the river before them, with increasing impetus, was now within three hundred yards of the pass, to which those in the sleigh were hastening, with the evident design of crossing. And though the latter, owing to a point of woods that intervened at a bend in the stream a short distance above, could not see the coming ice, yet they seemed aware of its dangerous proximity; for, as they now drove down to the edge of the water, they paused, and a large man, who appeared to have control of the team, rose to his feet, and with words that could not be distinguished in the roaring of the wind and the noise from the scene above, made an appealing gesture, which was readily understood by our foot travellers as an inquiry whether the team would have time to cross before the ice reached the spot.

“It is Colonel Carpenter and his company,” said Woodburn. “He will have no time to spare, but enough, I think, if he instantly improves it, to get safely over. He has smart horses, and is anxious to be on this side of the river. Let him come.”

Accordingly, they returned him encouraging gestures, which being seen and understood by him, he instantly whipped up his horses, and, forcing them on the ice, soon effected his passage in safety, and drove rapidly down the road, leading along the northern bank of the stream to Connecticut, the object of his speed being obviously to keep forward of the icy flood, which by his progress might otherwise be soon obstructed.