ed to mutter words of prayer. Then she rose to her
feet, and looked around with a face of horror. There was such an
anguish of fear in her face, that I tried to comfort her. But my
efforts were useless.

"Oh! there a no hope! The river is breaking up!" she moaned. "They told
me it would. How mad I was to try to cross!"

Finding that I could do nothing to quell her fears, I began to think
what was best to be done. First of all, I determined to secure the
sleigh. It might be the means of saving us, or, if not, it would at any
rate do for a place of rest. It was better than the wet ice for the
lady. So I proceeded to pull it on the ice. The lady tried to help me,
and, after a desperate effort, the heavy pung was dragged from the
water upon the frozen surface. I then made her sit in it, and wrapped
the furs around her as well as I could.

She submitted without a word. Her white face was turned toward mine;
and once or twice she threw upon me, from her dark, expressive eyes, a
look of speechless gratitude. I tried to promise safety, and encouraged
her as well as I could, and she seemed to make an effort to regain her
self-control.

In spite of my efforts at consolation, her despair affected me. I
looked all around to see what the chances of escape might be. As I took
that survey, I perceived that those chances were indeed small. The
first thing that struck me was, that Cape Diamond was far behind the
point where I at present stood. While the sleigh had drifted, and I had
walked beside it, our progress had been down the river; and since then
the ice, which itself had all this time been drifting, had borne us on
without ceasing. We were still drifting at the very moment that I
looked around. We had also moved farther away from the shore which I
wished to reach, and nearer to the Quebec side. When the sleigh had
first gone over, there had not been more than twenty yards between the
ice and the shore; but now that shore was full two hundred yards away.
All this tune the fury of the wind, and the torment of the blinding,
stinging sleet, had not in the least abated; the grinding and roaring
of the ice had increased; the long ridge had heaped itself up to a
greater height, and opposite us it towered up in formidable masses.

I thought at one time of intrusting myself with my companion to the
sleigh, in the hope of using it as a boat to gain the shore. But I
could not believe that it would float with both of us, and, if it
wou