"Quick, then!" exclaimed the first speaker. "There isn't a moment to lose."
"But, Mac," answered Lanse, as he hurried after him. "I'm afraid she's no good; she's old and she's been stowed away all winter. Ten to one the old thing leaks like a riddlin' sieve.
"But we mustn't lose a chance!" exclaimed Mac. "That jam will go out within half an hour, if it doesn't within ten minutes!"
By this time the two had reached the shed. They quickly drew the bateau from its wintering place, and taking the long, light boat upon their shoulders, ran rapidly through the village and down to the river.
Meantime, two or three other men had run to fetch "dog warps" and "towing-lines," a large number of which are always kept in these backwoods lumbering hamlets, for use on the rivers and lakes, when logs are rafted out in the spring.
Acting under Mac's prompt orders, a six-hundred foot warp was at once made fast to a ring in the stern of a bateau, and another line laid ready to bend to the first.
Jumping into the bateau, paddle in hand, and a boat-hook laid ready for instant use, the bold young fellow now ordered the men to shove off the skiff into the river and then pay out the line, as he should direct—thus lowering him, yard by yard, down toward the "jam" where Jule stood.
Rod by rod, they let him down toward the roaring abyss of furious waters, till the bateau—guided by the paddle, and held back now by the main strength of twenty men—touched the ice-cake.
But even as it touched, the cake began to slide off the jam; and Jule was thrown on his hands and knees.
Quick as thought, however, his courageous rescuer struck his boat-hook into the ice and held fast while Jule, stiff with fright, tumbled in at the bow of the bateau.