Amy and Grace did not try to conceal the tears in their eyes. Mollie was more like the Little Captain—brave and hopeful. Not that Grace and Amy were cowards—far from it—but they had not the buoyant reserve strength of their chums.
"Steady now, and I'll have you!" cried the man. He had come to a halt in his boat on a big swirling cake, which was keeping pace with the progress of the one containing the ice boat. "I'm going to make a line fast to you," the man explained, "and take my end ashore. Then I can haul you in. I don't dare risk taking you off in the boat. The ice is breaking up too fast. Stand by now, to catch the line I'm going to throw."
He was kneeling in his queer craft, and the girls could now see that it was made for just such work as this. It was a small punt, capable of being rowed or paddled. And to enable it to slide over the ice two strips of iron, for runners, extended along the bottom from stem to stern, just under the lower and outer edges of the boat's sides. In other words it was a combined sled and boat. It was a type much used by muskrat-hunters who have to seek their quarry on flooded meadows that often freeze over uncertainly.
"Here you go!" shouted the man. "Make this line fast to the forward part of your boat. How are the runners; well sunk in?"
"Yes!" answered Betty, glancing to make sure. The steel runners of the cross-piece of the craft, as well as the steering plates in the rear, had, because of the fact that the boat had been stationary so long, sunk deep into the soft ice. The Spider was firmly anchored.
"The rope will hold better on your craft, than on the ice itself," the man explained after he had thrown it. "Have you made it fast?"
"Yes!" cried Mollie, who had assisted Betty in catching the line, and taking a couple of turns about a strong cleat.
"Oh, do please hurry and—and save us!" panted Grace.
"I will, miss. Don't be skeered," said their rescuer kindly. The girls could see that he was a burly lumberman, but no one they had ever met before, as far as any of them could remember.
"I'll have you ashore soon," he added. "I'll make as good time back as I can, though it's ticklish work, for the ice is going out fast. It's early for it, too, and the river will freeze up again bad. But don't worry. Your floe will hold until I get you all ashore. Just sit tight, and don't worry!"