“There,” resumed Woodburn, breaking the silence with which he and his companions had been witnessing the rather hazardous passage of their friends,—“there, the colonel is well over; but his is the last sleigh to cross this year, unless it be drawn by winged horses.”
“Well, winged, or not winged, there is another, it seems, about to make the attempt,” said one of the company, pointing across the river, where a covered double sleigh, with showy equipage was dashing at full speed down the road towards the stream.
“It is a hostile craft!” “Peters and his gang!” “We owe them no favors!” “Let the enemy take care of themselves!” were the exclamations which burst from the recently-incensed group, as all eyes were now turned to the spot.
“O, no! no!” exclaimed Woodburn, with looks of the most lively concern. “Be they foes or friends, they must not be suffered to enter upon that river. Why, the breaking ice has already nearly reached the bend, and unless it stops there, that path across the stream, within five minutes, will be as traceless as the ocean! Run down to the bank, and hail them!” he continued, turning to those around him. “I fear they would not listen to me. Will no one go to warn them against an attempt which must prove their destruction?” he added, reproachfully glancing around him.
“Shall we interfere unasked?” said one, who was smarting under a sense of former injuries; “ay, and interfere, too, to save such a man as Peters, that he may go on robbing us of our farms?”
“And save such a man as Sheriff Patterson, also, that he may hang the innocent and pious Herriot?” said another, bitterly.
“And save them all, that they may keep up the court which will soon hang or rob the whole of us?” added a third, in the same spirit.
“O, wrong—wickedly wrong! and, if no one will go, I must,” cried Woodburn, turning hastily from the spot, and making his way down the hill towards the river with all the speed he was master of.
A few seconds sufficed to bring him to the edge of the stream, when, in a voice that rose above the roar of the wind and waters around, he called on Peters, who was already urging his reluctant and snorting horses down the opposite bank into the water, warned him of the situation of the ice, and begged him, as he valued the lives of his friends, to desist from his perilous attempt.
“Do you think to frighten me?” shouted Peters, who, perceiving the speaker to be his despised opponent, became suspicious, as the latter had feared, that the warning was but a ruse to prevent him from going on that night,—“do you think to frighten me back, liar, when a heavy team has just passed safely over before my eyes?”