Guarding His Goal

by Ralph Henry Barbour

Toby stood on the bridge a few moments watching the ice-cakes swirl under, turning and dipping, or pile up against the piers, and then, mindful of the doctor’s instruction, he took the road along the river and wandered down toward the Point. The river widens as it nears the Sound, and to-day, with the tide running out hard and strong and the ice-cakes moving seaward it was worth watching. He had the road pretty much to himself, for Wissining is not a populous village and the day was not such as to attract many folks out of doors, and he plodded on through melting snow and rotting ice and plain brown mud until the big wrought-iron gates of the Pennimore estate blocked his further progress. From that point he could look westward along the Sound for several miles, and he paused a minute and watched a schooner dipping her way along under the brisk wind, and a coal steamer churning slowly eastward. Then he turned back and retraced his steps, since there was no alternate road, and had reached a point near the little ferry house, long since abandoned to time and weather, when a faint cry fell on his ears.

Toby looked about him and saw no one save a man driving a wagon across the bridge nearly a quarter of a mile upstream. Across the river were a few shanties and although there was no one in sight it was probable that the shout had come from there. Toby went on his way, not quite satisfied, however, for the cry, as faint as it had been, had sounded like an appeal for help. And then, before he had taken a dozen steps, it came again, louder this time and seemingly closer at hand. Toby’s gaze swept the opposite shore, traveled up the river—

What was that between him and the bridge? A boat? No, it didn’t look like a boat. It was a darkish spot apparently in the water, but surely no one would be silly enough to attempt to swim there! And then he realized. In the middle of the river, turning and dipping, floated an ice-cake and on it, stretched face-downward, was the form of a boy! Hardly crediting his sight, Toby stood and stared. But there was no deception. The ice-cake and its imperiled burden was floating nearer and nearer and the cries, shrill and terror-stricken, came plainly now across the water. Now and then the frail expanse of ice tipped dangerously and Toby could see the boy strive frantically to adjust his body to the slant, to keep the ice-cake from turning over. One hand clutched desperately at an edge and the other was stretched on the slippery surface. Straight for the open water of the Sound it floated, and, as Toby well knew, the boy could never stay on it a moment after it reached the rough water. Toby’s first act was entirely involuntary. He rushed to the edge of the embankment, slipping and tripping on the ice, put his hands to his mouth and sent his voice across the space.

“All right!” he shouted. “Hold on! I’m coming!”

But that was easier promised than performed, as he realized the next moment with a sinking heart. At least sixty yards would separate him from the ice-cake when it floated opposite. If he risked it and succeeded, he might crawl out on the stationary ice along the shore and cut that distance down by half, but even then he would be no better off. He had no rope to throw and could not have thrown it so far in any event. To swim would be foolhardy, for even if he managed to make his way through the loose ice as far as the boy he would never be able to bring him ashore. A boat, then, was the only hope, and not a boat was in sight on his side of the river. Nearer and nearer came the ice-cake with its living cargo, colliding with other cakes, swaying and twisting and dipping, every moment threatening to upheave one side or another and drop its burden into the icy waters. Toby thought desperately, looked helplessly about him. And then his gaze fell on the little dismantled ferry house and he raced down the bank toward it, hoping against hope.

The door on the water side was half off, sprawling on its rusted hinges, and at first glance the dim interior seemed empty. But at first glance only, for, as Toby’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom, they descried a boat, tilted on its side, and what looked like the handle of an oar protruding over the edge. How he pulled that skiff from the old ferry house to the landing and then over yards of creaking, swaying ice he never knew. But somehow he did it, and somehow, just as he and the boat sank through yielding ice, he managed to scramble into it, to seize one of the oars and push off. Rowing was out of the question as yet, for his strength was spent and the ice, bobbing about in huge fragments, prevented his dipping the blades in water. But, sobbing for very weariness, he knelt and pushed, prodding at an edge or a crevice, and so at last made his way into clearer water and then looked anxiously upstream.

For an instant his heart sank leadenly, for the boy was nowhere in sight. He was too late! But the next moment he saw him, already abreast and moving fast toward the mouth of the river. Toby, with a gasp of relief, fitted the oars to the ancient thole-pins and rowed his hardest.

He was a good hand in a boat, was Toby, otherwise he would never have won that race through the ice-floes. The boat leaked like a sieve and he wondered long before he reached his goal whether it would keep afloat long enough to reach shore again. Ice-cakes swept down against the skiff and fairly staggered it. When he saw them in time Toby tried to fend them off with an oar, but rowing was the main necessity, for the boy on the ice-cake was going fast, and he must take his chances with the floes. For many minutes or so it seemed to Toby, the skiff failed to gain, but at last it caught the current in the middle of the stream and then, with Toby pulling as he had never pulled before, it began to gain. The water was already getting rougher and every moment the boy’s predicament became more perilous. Only once did Toby waste precious breath on encouragement. Then he shouted over his shoulder:

“[Coming! Hold on a little longer!]”