In Which David Grey’s Friend, the Son of the Factor at Fort Red Wing, Yarns of the Professor With the Broken Leg, a Stretch of Rotten River Ice and the Tug of a White Rushing Current

One quiet evening, after sunset, in the early summer, when the folk of Ruddy Cove were passing time in gossip on the wharf, while they awaited the coming of the mail-boat, old David Grey, who had told the tale of McLeod and the tomahawks, called to Billy Topsail and his friends. A bronzed, pleasant-appearing man, David’s friend, shook hands with the boys with the grip of a woodsman. Presently he drifted into a tale of his own boyhood at Fort Red Wing in the wilderness far back of Quebec. “You see,” said he, “my father had never fallen into the habit of coddling me. So when the lost Hudson Bay Geological Expedition made Fort Red Wing in the spring––every man exhausted, except the young professor, who had broken a leg a month back, and had set it with his own hands––it was the most 173 natural thing in the world that my father should command me to take the news to Little Lake, whence it might be carried, from post to post, all the way to the department at Ottawa.

“‘And send the company doctor up,’ said he. ‘The little professor’s leg is in a bad way, if I know anything about doctoring. So you’ll make what haste you can.’

“‘Yes, sir,’ said I.

“‘Keep to the river until you come to the Great Bend. You can take the trail through the bush from there to Swift Rapids. If the ice is broken at the rapids, you’ll have to go round the mountain. That’ll take a good half day longer. But don’t be rash at the rapids, and keep an eye on the ice all along. The sun will be rotting it by day now. It looks like a break-up already.’

“‘Shall I go alone, sir?’ said I.

“‘No,’ said my father, no doubt perceiving the wish in the question. ‘I’ll have John go with you for company.’

“John was an Indian lad of my own age, or thereabouts, who had been brought up at the fort––my companion and friend. I doubt if I shall ever find a stancher one. 174

“With him at my heels and a little packet of letters in my breast pocket, I set out early the next day. It was late in March, and the sun, as the day advanced, grew uncomfortably hot.

“‘Here’s easy going!’ I cried, when we came to the river.

“‘Bad ice!’ John grunted.

“And it proved to be so––ice which the suns of clear weather had rotted and the frosts of night and cold days had not repaired. Rotten patches alternated with spaces of open water and of thin ice, which the heavy frost of the night before had formed.

“When we came near to Great Bend, where we were to take to the woods, it was late in the afternoon, and the day was beginning to turn cold.

“We sped on even more cautiously, for in that place the current is swift, and we knew that the water was running like mad below us. I was ahead of John, picking the way; and I found, to my cost, that the way was unsafe. In a venture offshore I risked too much. Of a sudden the ice let me through.

“It was like a fall, feet foremost, and when I came again to the possession of my faculties, 175 with the passing of the shock, I found that my arms were beating the edge of ice, which crumbled before them, and that the current was tugging mightily at my legs.

“‘Look out!’ I gasped.

“The warning was neither heard nor needed. John was flat on his stomach, worming his way towards me––wriggling slowly out, his eyes glistening.

“Meanwhile I had rested my arms on the edge, which then crumbled no more; but I was helpless to save myself, for the current had sucked my legs under the ice, and now held them securely there, sweeping them from side to side, all the while tugging as if to wrench me from my hold. The most I could do was to resist the pull, to grit my teeth and cling to the advantage I had. It was for John to make the rescue.

“There was an ominous crack from John’s direction. When I turned my eyes to look he was lying still. Then I saw him wriggle out of danger, backing away like a crab.

“‘John!’ I screamed.

“The appeal seemed not to move him. He continued to wriggle from me. When he came to solid ice he took to his heels. I caught sight of 176 him as he climbed the bank, and kept my eyes upon him until he disappeared over the crest. He had left me without a word.

“The water was cold and swift, and the strength of my arms and back was wearing out. The current kept tugging, and I realized, loath as I was to admit it, that half an hour would find me slipping under the ice. It was a grave mistake to admit it; for at once fancy began to paint ugly pictures for me, and the probabilities, as it presented them, soon flustered me almost beyond recovery.

“‘I was chest-high out of the water,’ I told myself. ‘Chest-high! Now my chin is within four inches of the ice. I’ve lost three inches. I’m lost!’

“With that I tried to release my feet from the clutch of the current, to kick myself back to an upright position, to lift myself out. It was all worse than vain. The water was running so swiftly that it dangled my legs as it willed, and the rotten ice momentarily threatened to let me through.

“I lost a full inch of position. So I settled myself to wait for what might come, determined to yield nothing through terror or despair. My 177 eyes were fixed stupidly upon the bend in the river, far down, where a spruce-clothed bluff was melting with the dusk.

“What with the cold and the drain upon my physical strength, it may be that my mind was a blank when relief came. At any rate, it seemed to have been an infinitely long time in coming; and it was with a shock that John’s words restored me to a vivid consciousness of my situation.

“‘Catch hold!’ said he.

“He had crawled near me, although I had not known of his approach, and he was thrusting towards me the end of a long pole, which he had cut in the bush. It was long, but not long enough. I reached for it, but my hand came three feet short of grasping it.

“John grunted and crept nearer. Still it was beyond me, and he dared venture no farther. He withdrew the pole; then he crept back and unfastened his belt. Working deliberately but swiftly, he bound the belt to the end of the pole, and came out again. He cast the belt within reach, as a fisherman casts a line. I caught it, clutched it, and was hauled from my predicament by main strength. 178

“‘John,’ I said, as we drew near to the half-way cabin, ‘I know your blood, and it’s all very well to be careful not to say too much; but there’s such a thing as saying too little. Why didn’t you tell me where you were going when you started for that pole?’

“‘Huh!’ said John, as if his faithfulness to me in every fortune were quite beyond suspicion.

“‘Yes, I know,’ I insisted, ‘but a word or two would have saved me a deal of uneasiness.’

“‘Huh!’ said he.”