"dray." Owing to the fact that the shores of Pike Lake were extremely
precipitous, it had been impossible to travoy the logs up over the hill.

Radway had sounded carefully the thickness of the ice with an ax.
Although the weather had of late been sufficiently cold for the time
of year, the snow, as often happens, had fallen before the temperature.
Under the warm white blanket, the actual freezing had been slight.
However, there seemed to be at least eight inches of clear ice, which
would suffice.

Some of the logs in question were found to be half imbedded in the ice.
It became necessary first of all to free them. Young Henrys cut a strong
bar six or eight feet long, while Pat McGuire chopped a hole alongside
the log. Then one end of the bar was thrust into the hole, the logging
chain fastened to the other; and, behold, a monster lever, whose fulcrum
was the ice and whose power was applied by Molly, hitched to the end of
the chain. In this simple manner a task was accomplished in five minutes
which would have taken a dozen men an hour. When the log had been
cat-a-cornered from its bed, the chain was fastened around one end by
means of the ever-useful steel swamp-hook, and it was yanked across the
dray. Then the travoy took its careful way across the ice to where a dip
in the shore gave access to a skidway.

Four logs had thus been safely hauled. The fifth was on its journey
across the lake. Suddenly without warning, and with scarcely a sound,
both horses sank through the ice, which bubbled up around them and over
their backs in irregular rotted pieces. Little Fabian Laveque shouted,
and jumped down from his log. Pat McGuire and young Henrys came running.

The horses had broken through an air-hole, about which the ice was
strong. Fabian had already seized Molly by the bit, and was holding her
head easily above water.

"Kitch Jenny by dat he't!" he cried to Pat.

Thus the two men, without exertion, sustained the noses of the team
above the surface. The position demanded absolutely no haste, for it
could have been maintained for a good half hour. Molly and Jenny, their
soft eyes full of the intelligence of the situation, rested easily in
full confidence. But Pat and Henrys, new to this sort of emergency, were
badly frightened and excited. To them the affair had come to a deadlock.

"Oh, Lord!" cried Pat, clinging desperately to Jenny's headpiece. "What
will we'z be doin'? We can't niver haul them two horses on the