The snow did not fall in any great volume. It came gently, and with that steadiness which betokens the beginning of a long, severe storm, and yet I skated on by his side, angry with myself for so doing, but lacking the courage to insist upon his going back.
The ice was as smooth as glass; there was not a breath of wind to impede our progress, and I believe we were covering no less than a mile every four or five minutes.
When, as nearly as I could judge, we had continued this mad chase for half an hour, Alec threw himself upon the ice, declaring he must have a breathing spell.
“I’m not up to this work as you are,” he said with a laugh, “and therefore am the more easily winded; but when it comes to endurance, you shall see that I am quite your equal. Ten minutes of a rest now, and I will not ask for a second halt until we stand on his Majesty’s soil.”
“Ay, and what then?” I asked, speaking sharply, for my patience was well-nigh exhausted, to say nothing of the fact that fear was creeping into my heart rapidly. “What will it avail us to stand on his Majesty’s soil?”
“Why, simply this, Dicky Dobbins,” Alec replied with a hearty laugh. “We shall go back to Presque Isle, among those who are so valiant while at home, and say we have entered the enemy’s country and returned in safety. We can also report that there are no redcoats nearabout to disturb the faint-hearted Pennsylvanians.”
“It will be a long day before we return, unless this storm clears away very soon, and of that there is no likelihood,” I replied moodily. “We are risking our lives—and it is no less than that, I assure you—for nothing but a whim of yours, which, when gratified, is of no benefit.”
“If you are taking it so much to heart, Dicky, we’ll turn back now,” and in a twinkling, as it were, Alec was the same cheery, honest lad I had believed him to be these two days past; but alas, his cheeriness, and his honesty, and his good comradeship had returned to him too late.
“We must push forward now, for I dare not make the attempt to go back. The Canadian shore should be within four or five miles, and if it please God we’ll gain it before the smother thickens.”
I think my words, and the tone in which they were spoken, gave the lad a sense of fear for the first time since we had set out. He looked about him with the air of one who suddenly discovers something, and then turning to me said softly, but with a manner that went straight to my heart:—