"Come along," said Archie, with decision, his teeth set; "we'll try that ice below again."
Below Ha-ha Shallow, where the stream dropped into a deep, long pool, lying between low cliffs, fringed with the spruce of that stunted wilderness, Rattle Water was bridged with ice. There had been flood water in the early spring break-up—a rush of broken ice, a jam in Black Pool, held by the rocks of its narrow exit; and the ice had been caught and sealed by the frosts of a swift spell of bitter weather.
The subsidence of Rattle Water, when the ice below Black Pool ran off with the current into the open reaches of Skeleton Arm, had left the jam suspended. It was a bridge from shore to shore, lifted a little from the water; but in the sunshine and thaw and warm rain of the subsequent interval it had gone rotten. Its heavy collapse was imminent.
And of this Billy Topsail and Archie had made sure on the way up-stream from the impassable ford to the impassable white water of Ha-ha Shallow. The ice-bridge could not be crossed. It awaited the last straw—a rain, a squall of wind, another day of sunshine and melting weather. Billy had ventured, on pussy-feet, and had withdrawn, threatened by a crack, his hair on end.
A second trial of the bridge had precisely the same result. Archie cast a stone. It plumped through.
"Soft 's cheese," said Billy.
Another stone was cast.
"Hear that, Billy?"
"Clean through, Archie."