ow two rails reaching out in the direction of the hole, their
further ends actually overtopping the gap in the ice.

"Stay here, Bristles, and do whatever I tell you!" Fred told his chum,
when, having arranged the rails as he wished, he started out along them.

His weight being now distributed over a wide surface there was no danger
of the rotten ice giving way under him. That is the essential point
about nearly all rescues on the ice, and what every boy should bear in
mind the moment his services are needed in order to save an imperiled
companion.

Fred was now enabled to approach the very edge of the hole, so that he
could hold out his hand to the boy in the water, who had been constantly
telling the girl to keep back lest she too fall in. Between them it was
possible to accomplish the rescue, for while Fred pulled, the boy also
exerted himself to the utmost, and presently crawled over the edge.

"Keep your weight as much as you can on the rails, because with your
clothes soaked, you weigh twice as much as I do," Fred kept telling him;
and yard by yard he drew the other along until finally they could get to
their feet, and make for the shore.

The girl was crying hysterically now, although she had shown considerable
bravery before.

"Oh! Brother Sammy, what if you had let go, and the current had drawn
you under the ice! I think I'd have wanted to jump in, too, because I'd
have nothing left to live for then!" she kept repeating, as she patted
his cold hand tenderly, and tried to warm it.

Fred knew that unless something was done immediately, the boy would be
very apt to be taken down sick, after all that nervous exhaustion, and
the cold bath he had suffered. The air was chilly, and must strike him
keenly.

"Here, you can't go home in that way, no matter how near by you live," he
went on to say, in his cheery way.

"Home!" repeated the girl, and her eyes exchanged a strange look with her
brother. "But what can we do, for there isn't any farmhouse around here?
We were coming across the river, and Sammy went too near a hole. Then
the ice broke, and all I could do was to scream. He wouldn't let me come
near him, but kept trying to climb out himself. Every time he got up on
the ice it broke again, and he went in. Oh! it was just terrible,
terrible! But he'll freeze now, mister, if we don't find a house soon."

"No he won't, not if we know it," said Fred. "Here, slap your arms about
you this way as ha