Then the trouble began. The steamer lay partly submerged. She was a small boat and her only mast had gone by the board. The bridge was a tangle of wreckage. The breeches-buoy, therefore, could only be made fast to the stump of the mast a few feet above the deck. Ashore, the same difficulty prevailed. There was no high land, the tripod being down almost on water-line. As soon as the hawser got wet and heavy with snow and the ice from the blowing spray, it began to sag so that it nearly touched the water.
With the weight of a man on it, the breeches-buoy line sank below the surface of the water, or rather the mush-ice. It was bad enough for the rescued men, already nearly perishing with exhaustion, to have to get a ducking, but there was still a greater danger. This was that the tackle might not stand the strain of dragging the breeches-buoy, with a man in it, through the mush-ice. The increased resistance might break the line and risk anew the perishing of every life on board.
The keeper saw the difficulty and decided promptly.
"Jefferson and Harris," he shouted, "you're the tallest. Get out into that mush-ice and see how deep it is. Wade out as far as you can go. Follow the line and stand ready to catch the breeches-buoy."
The two men chosen waded out, battling almost for their lives with big pieces of ice. Fortunately the bottom sloped gradually and they were able to walk out a considerable distance. Shouting to them through his trumpet to wait there, the keeper ordered the rest of the crew to haul in the first man. As the keeper had expected, the rope sagged terribly, but, by drawing up his legs, the rescued man did not actually sink into the mush-ice until nearly up to the spot where Jefferson and Harris stood. The two men grasped the buoy and started pulling it ashore, one man holding the survivor's head above the water and ice, while the other made a path in the ice by forcing his way ahead of the buoy.
Half-way in, Harris collapsed. It afterwards developed that he had been quite badly hurt on the ice-barrier but had not said a word about it. As four men were needed on shore and there should be three to help in the ice, the crew was a man short.
"I wish we had a third man!" said the keeper irritably. "Confoundedly annoying that Harris should have got hurt now."
"You have a third," said a quiet voice, and Edith Abend stepped forward.
"Your orders, keeper?" the girl put in quietly.