rustling, roaring sound, with sharp explosions and deep muffled booming.
The whole air seemed to quiver with sound, and the loudest shout would
have been inaudible a yard or two away. Below the ridge the river, so
long as the barrier stood, was comparatively clear, but from time to
time great masses of ice that had been sunk by the pressure and swept
along under the ridge came to the surface with a surge that lifted one
end high out of the water, reminding Godfrey of the spring of some
enormous fish; then the ice would come down with a mighty splash, and
hasten away reeling and rocking on the rapid current. Entranced by this
mighty conflict of the forces of nature, Godfrey stood there until seven
or eight o'clock in the evening.

It would be light for three hours yet, for the sun now only sank for a
short time below the horizon. The rain was still falling heavily when he
returned to his hut. The river had risen another thirty feet since the
evening before, and the height of the bank had decreased from a hundred
feet to about thirty. For two more days it rained incessantly. The river
had now risen to its high-water mark, ten feet below the bank. Godfrey
asked the Ostjaks if there was no fear of its overflowing, but they told
him that there was no cause for uneasiness, for that at its present
point it overflowed at many places both above and below them, and
extended over a vast tract of country, and that at every additional foot
it would spread so widely that it would speedily begin to fall again.
The ridge had now ceased to form, although the river was still packed
with floating masses.

"In another two days," the Ostjaks' chief said, "the ice will be all
gone except a few blocks. Much of the ice above is carried out by the
floods and left to melt on the land as the water lowers, but even
without that the river at its present rate would soon carry it all
down."

This Godfrey could well imagine, for at the rate of fifteen miles an
hour over three hundred and sixty miles of the river would have been
emptying daily. At the end of another three days but few blocks of ice
were visible, and Godfrey now began to make preparations for his start.
First the canoe was to be tried. She was taken down and placed in the
water, and the sides under the half-decks were filled in with frozen
geese and fish from the pile, which was still but little affected by the
thaw.

When she was thus brought down to nearly the weight she would hav