is boat so that it would pay out
without tangling.

"I was just passing when I saw your pickle," he told them. "Lucky I had
the rope with me, and I knew old Muskrat Ike must have his punt hid
along the bank somewhere. I routed it out and here I am. Now I'm off.
Keep up your spirits!" he called with a smile.

With two short, iron shod and pointed poles he shoved his boat around
and off the floe where he had halted. Into the water plunged the queer
craft, and then the man paddled. He slid the shelving, pointed prow out
on another ice cake and thus, alternately progressing, he neared the
shore.

As he approached it, narrowly watched by the girls, who cast occasional
glances at their own floe, Betty uttered a cry.

"There are the boys!"

Three figures could be seen hurrying down to the edge of the ice-filled
river, and it needed but a glance to show that they were Will, Frank and
Allen.

In another minute or two the lumberman, in his queer boat, had reached
the shore. Out he leaped, and shoving his punt to one side he began
hauling on the rope that was fast to the ice-anchored auto craft, the
rope forming a slender bridge to the land. Slowly the ice-floe began to
approach the shore, shoving the lesser cakes aside.

But now a new danger presented itself. As long as the big floe had gone
down with the current it had not been struck hard by other chunks of
ice, since all were moving at the same rate of speed. Now, as the big
floe was hauled cross-ways to the current, other cakes collided with it,
breaking off large chunks.

"There won't be anything left when we get ashore," cried Grace. "We're
going to pieces fast!"

"Don't get excited!" advised Mollie. "We'll be all right," but she
watched with eager eyes the progress they were making, and the
ever-decreasing size of their floe.

"The boys are going to help him!" cried Mollie. "Now we will move
faster."

Will and the others, reaching the side of the lumberman, and seeing his
plan, laid hold of the rope with him, and hauled with all their might.
Then, indeed, the floe containing the ice boat did move toward shore
more quickly. And to such good purpose did the rescuers haul that, in a
short time, the cake grounded in shallow water, with one point so near
shore that the girls could leap across the intervening water safely.

And it was only just in time, for when Betty, who insisted on being the
last to leave the boat, landed, the cake split in half, and the _Spid