"But we—we can't help it," half whispered Amy.
The man, having tossed the rope which Betty and Mollie secured, now arranged the coils in the bottom of his boat so that it would pay out without tangling.
"I was just passing when I saw your pickle," he told them. "Lucky I had the rope with me, and I knew old Muskrat Ike must have his punt hid along the bank somewhere. I routed it out and here I am. Now I'm off. Keep up your spirits!" he called with a smile.
With two short, iron shod and pointed poles he shoved his boat around and off the floe where he had halted. Into the water plunged the queer craft, and then the man paddled. He slid the shelving, pointed prow out on another ice cake and thus, alternately progressing, he neared the shore.
As he approached it, narrowly watched by the girls, who cast occasional glances at their own floe, Betty uttered a cry.
"There are the boys!"
Three figures could be seen hurrying down to the edge of the ice-filled river, and it needed but a glance to show that they were Will, Frank and Allen.
In another minute or two the lumberman, in his queer boat, had reached the shore. Out he leaped, and shoving his punt to one side he began hauling on the rope that was fast to the ice-anchored auto craft, the rope forming a slender bridge to the land. Slowly the ice-floe began to approach the shore, shoving the lesser cakes aside.
But now a new danger presented itself. As long as the big floe had gone down with the current it had not been struck hard by other chunks of ice, since all were moving at the same rate of speed. Now, as the big floe was hauled cross-ways to the current, other cakes collided with it, breaking off large chunks.
"There won't be anything left when we get ashore," cried Grace. "We're going to pieces fast!"