"Well, it couldn't have started by itself," said Hank. "Let's look around."
They had taken less than a dozen steps down the lane when a figure started up from behind a stump, jumped the fence, crashed down the hill toward the lake, and began to skirt the bay.
"It's Joe Valentine," shouted Early Ann.
"This is my job," Stud cried, dashing after the fleeing figure.
Hearing shouts, Joe Valentine decided to risk the shortest way to Lake House Point. He leaped onto the melting ice and ran and stumbled two hundred yards out from the shore. They saw him clearly in the light of the burning barn as he crashed through into the black water and went down; and although they watched the dark hole in the ice for twenty minutes he did not come up again.
BOOK FIVE