"What a queer boat!"
"Sometimes it's in the water, and again it's on the ice!"
"No matter! He's coming to save us, and it's high time! There goes another chunk off our ice raft!"
It was Betty who gave voice to the last, and Grace, Amy and Mollie in turn, who had expressed the other sentiments. All were true in their way. The man did certainly seem to be advancing in a peculiar manner. At times he appeared to be rowing, or padding, and again he propelled himself over a big cake of ice, pushing himself along by means of short poles on either side of the boat.
And, as Mollie had said, at times he was in the water, and again gliding over the ice. What Betty had said was but too true. Now and then, with a startling report, the big floe on which rested the auto ice boat containing the girls would be lessened by a great chunk, that would break off, and go floating away.
"Oh, hurry! Do, please, hurry!" breathed Grace, as she sat huddled close beside Amy, gazing now and then into the ice-encumbered black water that seemed momentarily to be encroaching on their margin of safety.
"We can never all get in that boat!" decided Amy, as the man alternately pushed and paddled it toward them. "It will only hold two, and he'll have to make four trips. It may be too late—for the last one!"
"He's doing all he can," said Betty. "Perhaps the boat will hold more than you think." But, even as she said this she looked askance at the peculiar craft. Clearly it was small, and at most could hold but three. There would be danger in this even. And it would necessitate two trips at best. This delay, with the constantly-decreasing size of the floe meant danger for two of them.
"Hold on, ladies, I'm coming!!" cried the man in the boat. "I'll soon have you safe ashore. Don't jump, whatever you do, or you'll be ground to pieces by the ice cakes!"
"Cheerful prospect," remarked Betty grimly.