An hour later they caught the scream of a siren behind them. It was a sound that never ceased to thrill them. Other whistles in camp took it up and with it came the ringing of bells and the crack of pistols and rifles.
“I wonder who won,” a deputy wondered.
“It won’t make any difference,” Kenmore replied, “if we don’t overhaul the crooks!”
Something cracked ahead of them. They ran swiftly and leaped an opening in the ice. Water began to pour through, spreading slowly over the smooth surface. It would be a tough job, returning. An hour later they reached Boulder Creek and Kenmore threw up his hands and groaned. “They knew what they were doing. Timed things just right. We’ve got to quit the ice!”
“There’s a bend in the river,” one of them shouted. “If we cut across it will save something!”
“Lead off!” the marshal ordered.
The roar grew louder. First the explosive sound of breaking ice, then the grinding of millions of ice cakes as the flood waters lifted the ice bodily and carried it toward the sea. Here it stranded on bars and piled cake on cake until a dam had been formed. There it broke through the banks and relieved for a moment of pressure, while the country was flooded.
They crossed the bend in the river and, instead of the smooth surface they had desired, a churning, ice dotted flood filled the course to the banks. They ran madly, taking turns at trail breaking; helping one another over the bad places. Minutes counted. It was a tossup whether they could cross the flat country ahead before the water flooded it.
They cut across to the stream once more and followed along the bank. Here the river had broken through a low mountain range after ages of effort. Walls were of granite, scraped by the ice of thousands of years. A panting deputy cried out with excitement—
“Look at that!”