lasses to the Baron and strained
absently with his naked eyes. "And something is up."

"He creeps!" the baron exclaimed. "The man creeps, he crawls, on hand
and knee! Look! See!" He thrust the glasses tremblingly into Frona's
hands.

Looking across the void of shimmering white, it was difficult to
discern a dark object of such size when dimly outlined against an
equally dark background of brush and earth. But Frona could make the
man out with fair distinctness; and as she grew accustomed to the
strain she could distinguish each movement, and especially so when he
came to a wind-thrown pine. Sue watched painfully. Twice, after
tortuous effort, squirming and twisting, he failed in breasting the big
trunk, and on the third attempt, after infinite exertion, he cleared it
only to topple helplessly forward and fall on his face in the tangled
undergrowth.

"It is a man." She turned the glasses over to St. Vincent. "And he is
crawling feebly. He fell just then this side of the log."

"Does he move?" Jacob Welse asked, and, on a shake of St. Vincent's
head, brought his rifle from the tent.

He fired six shots skyward in rapid succession. "He moves!" The
correspondent followed him closely. "He is crawling to the bank. Ah!
. . . No; one moment . . . Yes! He lies on the ground and raises his
hat, or something, on a stick. He is waving it." (Jacob Welse fired
six more shots.) "He waves again. Now he has dropped it and lies
quite still."

All three looked inquiringly to Jacob Welse.

He shrugged his shoulders. "How should I know? A white man or an
Indian; starvation most likely, or else he is injured."

"But he may be dying," Frona pleaded, as though her father, who had
done most things, could do all things.

"We can do nothing."

"Ah! Terrible! terrible!" The baron wrung his hands. "Before our
very eyes, and we can do nothing! No!" he exclaimed, with swift
resolution, "it shall not be! I will cross the ice!"

He would have started precipitately down the bank had not Jacob Welse
caught his arm.

"Not such a rush, baron. Keep your head."

"But--"

"But nothing. Does the man want food, or medicine, or what? Wait a
moment. We will try it together."

"Count me in," St. Vincent volunteered promptly, and Frona's eyes
sparkled.

While she made up a bundle of food in the tent, the men provided and
rigged themselves with sixty or seventy feet of light rope. Jacob
Welse and St. Vincent mad